Tears of Pearls
by sweet-and-simple
Summary: In the years of Gaia, the world was split into four corners. The East, the West, the South, and the North. In the West, there were the Islands of Beasts, and foreigners were brought there to be either a slave or a mate. Lee and his bonded sister Hinata are brought in from the East to be mates. Nothing will ever be the same again. AU SasuLee NaruHina mention of mpreg
1. Part 1

"NO! NOOOO! _Imou-Saeng_! _Imou-Saeng_! LET GO OF ME! _IMOU-SAENG_!"

He clung to her, arms tight around her slight, malnourished frame, nearly breaking her, but even that strength was not enough to stop the prying hands, the harsh, irritated growls and snarls, the foreign insults and demands that berated his ears. A large man grabbed his bony shoulders and twisted, popping one out of place while he felt the throbbing agony of an already large bruise on the other. He was wrenched sideways and then back, away from the young woman.

Her pale eyes bled milky white tears as she tried to force her way free, force her way back to him, but it was all doomed effort.

And then, in a flash of heavy stone doors snapping shut like ferocious jaws, the woman was gone.

Lee screamed till he felt his lungs bled as three men held him at bay, one firmly holding onto the leash of his braid, causing him more pain then they would ever known, while another tried valiantly to push his shoulder back into place.

"Quiet!" snapped a blonde woman, holding him with nearly the same strength as the two towering men. "_Tú se siguichen!_"

He sobbed, feeling so many dizzying emotions in his heavy heart - anger, betrayal, fear, desperation. He struggled more, not because he knew he could escape, but because he could not find comfort with the knowledge that he was trapped.

"He doez no know our lang-age," spoke one of the men with a heavy, crooning accent. "Li'l 'un, ss-tay put."

He whimpered.

"Who'z do zay he know dat language eider?" snapped the man at his braid.

"Id iz de Eard Lang-age," spoke the man again, obviously very confused. "Everyone know dat lang-age."

Lee knew that language as well. Better even than these men appeared to, apparently, but he refused to let them know that.

He refused to let them know anything about him when they had taken away everything that meant anything to him.

"Of _course_ he knows the Earth language!" growled the woman, who, despite still having an accent, spoke the dialect properly. "Couldn't you hear him scream _no_ at the top of his lungs?" She hit him in the back of his head with her elbow, and his world faded in and out for moments afterward.

"- one contender, I will be shocked," he caught the woman saying as he came back into focus.

Suddenly, from outside the room he was being held in, there was a loud, boisterous round of applause.

Lee screamed in agony, confused and worried and terrified.

What would they do to her? What would they do to his _imou-saeng_? What was going on out there?

The stone doors opened once more and a small man trotted in. He leaned up and whispered into the woman's ear before leaving.

"Naruto, huh?" drawled the woman holding him. She snickered. "_Eli tiese suechans._"

What did that mean? _What did that mean_?

He was pushed forward towards the doors. He cried out and pushed back against them. Part of him was desperate to see the fate that had befallen his _imou-saeng_, but his stubbornness, his fury, demanded that he fight his capturers at every turn, that he let them have nothing from him without a fight.

They pushed and dragged and shoved at him till he was close enough to the doors that he felt the stone's cold seeping into his skin, that he could see the scars and dents in it that must have come from previous captives. Then he was manhandled down a glossy corridor. At the end of it, an open archway of light filtered through with blood and rot in the wind and the cries and hoots of possibly a thousand people. Maybe more.

Faintly, he heard a voice rise above the crowds. But it was still far too low for him to catch everything the voice said. He caught only,_ "He is a male carrier, ready to be tamed by a strong-willed mate…"_

He snarled and threw his head back, bashing someone in the face, yet he had no clue who. The woman hissed with displeasure and slapped him, making his already hurting head throb even more painfully.

The voice was clearer now, louder, and it was declaring, loud enough for those damned souls caught in the heart of Gaia to hear, _"For this prize, we will open the Ring at one contender. One contender, MALE 001, two contenders, MALE 002, three contenders MALE 003, four contenders, FEMALE 004…"_

He met her blue eyes with his own starless night black ones. They battled without words or weapons as he let her know, without so much as a twitch, that he despised her. That he hated everything she stood for, that he was eager for her demise and the demise of everyone like her, that the forgiveness and contentedness that his people were known for was nowhere to be found.

She leered playfully, mercilessly at him, and, with one hand atop his skull, forced him to face forward as they took that last step out of the darkness into the light.

"_The Ring closes at seven contenders. The last contender will have the prize as their mate."_

He stood on a pedestal, wearing a fresh white robe over his bony figure, having suffered months of neglect at the hands of human scavengers and traders. Laid out before him was a stadium. What he had thought to be one impossibly loud voice was actually five voices joined together in synchronized speech. Five men stood on a stage at the opposite end of where he stood, hands folded demurely in front of them and sharp eyes focused on him. Between him and the speakers, at ground floor while they were raised, was a fighting ring. There were seven people within it, and they were all looking expectantly at him.

He showed off his fiercest glare as he all but felt their eyes raking over him, as if they could see through his robe, through his skin, to all the traits that made him worthy and priceless. A few of them seemed visibly put out.

One or two appeared ferociously pleased with what they saw.

The blonde woman leaned in close to him, her mouth against his ear, and whispered, "Watch them kill for you, little foreigner."

He jerked, looking at her with not a clue what she meant.

"_BEGIN."_

Immediately, the few that had looked let down fell flat to the floor, hands spread out away from their bodies in a sign of defeat.

The last four men went at each other with a fervor Lee had only seen in his country's warriors as they were attacking enemies. As if they were attacking murderers. As if each of them was the darkest, foulest creature on earth that had to be removed.

"They're killing each other," he whispered in horror, momentarily forgetting that he had resolved not to speak the Earth Language around his capturers.

"Yes," the blonde drawled. "How else are they going to prove their worth? Only the strongest can have mates. The victor will have you and you will have their children. You should feel proud."

_Proud_? Proud that other human beings were dying so that they would have the right to rape and impregnate him? Oh, yes, he was so very proud, so incredibly proud, proud enough that he wanted to break free of his capturers and join the fray himself, a saber in one hand and his metal staff in the other as he expressed his _pride_.

He would show them a barbarian, them and their howling, roaring, cheering observers.

"I don't want this," he said instead, too weak to break free, too injured to work on adrenaline, too alone to make a team effort.

"They want you," the blonde said simply, grinning smugly, as she held him in place, forcing him to either shut his eyes or watch.

There were three men left. Then two. He watched a boy younger than himself fall to the ground in a puddle of his own blood, brown hair tangled around him, brown eyes staring blankly up into the stadium lights.

That left a man with black hair and black eyes and a man with green eyes and white hair.

Even as he watched, he swore something overcame the both of them. Black markings trickled over their naked chests, over naked arms and throats and faces. Their skin paled, became grey, and their eyes swirled.

"Sasuke of the Uchiha Clan, descendent of the Demon Tamer and Prince of the Sharingan," was crooned into his ear. "Kimimaro has no hope of defeating him and then you, my little foreigner, will be Sasuke's plaything. Your kind rarely last with him and, in a few months, he will return to this cage, even bitterer than before." Her tongue flicked against his cheek. "_Espero qou mueri._ Trust me, I mean the best for you."

He reared back and snapped at her with his teeth. She eyed him dispassionately before she forced him forward again.

One man stood in the center of the cage, spattered with blood, bare from the waist up to show an impressive build, and something supernatural was receding from him.

Grey skin bled to white and golden coin eyes swirled to ink. Long pale purple hair shortened and piqued as raven-wing black. Wings, like scaly hands, melted away.

Lee spun his head around to pin the woman with a look of pure, undulated shock and terror.

She looked dreadfully amused. "Don't you know where you are, little foreigner? This is the Land of the West – the Islands of the Beasts. And you are this particular beast's next meal."

"_MALE 006 has won the Ring! MALE 006, Sasuke of the Uchiha Clan, descendent of the Demon Tamer and Prince of the Sharingan, you may claim your prize and mate."_

Feeling eyes boring into his flesh, he glimpsed back into the cage.

Sasuke was staring at him.

And he looked hungry.

~""~

Only within the doors of a destination Lee hadn't been able to see from under Sasuke's arm did the man put him down on his own two feet and then lead him forward.

Like a dog.

Around his throat was an intricate platinum and silver collar and a leash made of diamond dust was attached to it, its loop secured around the other man's wrist. Lee's hands were bound behind his back, another bond above his elbows so that he wasn't able to even slip his cuffs around his front. Secured to each of his ankles were weights far heavier than the work loads he used to carry at home, and it made it decidedly harder to run or leap or kick his capturer. It took all of his strength merely to lift one foot and then put it back down a little bit further than it had been, and their pace was slow as Sasuke would occasionally throw him irritated, impatient glares.

He made certain to glare right back at him.

Lee had not asked to be captured from his homeland.

Lee had not asked to be claimed as a slave.

Lee had not asked to be sold to such a handler that would use him as a prize in some a barbaric mating game.

He certainly hadn't asked Sasuke to win said game.

"Sasuke!"

Lee turned his head to see a blonde man barreling down the corridor towards them. He had scars on his cheeks, or maybe tattoos or birthmarks, that reminded him oddly of whiskers, and he had the brightest blue eyes Lee had ever seen. His tan was a farmer's tan, as well as Lee knew, yet he carried himself with such confidence and force that only power could grant.

He wore no shirt, like Sasuke, but wore orange lounge pants that flapped against his defined legs. He was barefoot and his only other item of dress was a crystal secured around his throat with black thong.

He turned his head to study Lee as he passed and gave him a somewhat kind smile and a friendly wave before focusing on the dark man who held him enslaved.

"_¿Hake visto wé mi akouple?_"

"_Swi_." Sasuke suddenly pulled on the chain and Lee was sent flying forward into him. An arm came around his waist and pressed him firmly against the man's side, close enough that he felt the fiery heat that rolled off of Sasuke like a blazing summer day. "_Esta se mío._"

"_Ornal opu kaiheo shiyo!_" Lee snapped, pushing against Sasuke but to no avail.

Black eyes, as if someone had cut out two small windows into a grave winter night, focused on him. "He _is_ unbroken," he said.

The blonde barked with laughter. "I'll say. Hey, what's your name?"

He debated not saying anything.

Then he thought, they were going to call him something sooner or later, and he would rather have it be his given name than a slave or pet name. "Lee," he answered reluctantly. "I am Lee."

"Lee what?" asked the blonde.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, where are your titles?"

He thought of how long everyone's name was here in the West. Suddenly, it made sense. "We have no titles in the East. We are all equal."

"_Really_? Damn. Sorry you had to end up here, then. My name is Naruto of the Uzu – er, just Naruto. The bastard who's got you on a leash right now is Sasuke. Mind if I ask you a question, Lee?"

_Naruto_. That was the name of the blonde woman had mentioned! He felt himself rise to his full height, glowering hatefully at the seemingly kind man.

If Naruto noticed, he didn't let on to the sudden tension that filled the air. "Could you tell me what _Onii-saeng_ means?"

"It means," he growled angrily, "_big brother_."

"Oh. _Oh_. Shit, my mate has a big brother around here somewhere! She won't stop crying, no matter what I do, y'kn – WHAO!"

Lee tried, and failed, to bite the man's nose off, and only Sasuke's quick grip came between him and the man's mutilation. Sasuke swung an arm around his throat, pressing down till Lee's world was mottled black and grey and all he could hear was himself greedily sucking at air that refused to come.

Slowly, the pressure abated, and Lee went limp against Sasuke's side in relief and tiredness.

Naruto was scowling at him. "You're her big brother, aren't you?"

He spat in the blonde's face and was viciously pleased when Naruto yelped and swatted at his own face as if a large insect had landed there and refused to release him.

There was a dark, deep chuckle that resounded through his entire body, Sasuke's hand drifted from the top of his scalp to the bottom of his braid, over and over again. He held his breath, feeling each brush throughout his soul. If Sasuke knew what he was dealing with, he didn't let onto it.

"I'm proud to have you already," he purred, and Naruto glared heatedly at them both.

"Yeah, well, I'll fight you for him." Naruto crossed his arms behind his head, eyes made into slits. The stance was visually at ease, yet Lee felt the coiled tension in the blonde, ready to spring and attack at any moment.

"No," Sasuke said simply. "You can try me again after I've tasted him."

_Tasted him_.

That sounded dirty.

That sounded evasive.

That sounded like Lee wasn't going to be a virgin by the time Sasuke was done with him.

"_Hiba det pata!_" Naruto snarled. "They're never the same after you 'taste' them! Can't you just get a different one? This one's not really that special…" Now he sounded as if he was merely trying to reason with Sasuke.

Lee hoped so. Even by his own capturers, Lee was not sure how to feel about being termed as _not really that special_. Even in his homeland, he had always been referred to as something definitely not normal.

"He _is_ special, though. _You_ want him." A hand on his jaw wrenched his head to the side and he felt Sasuke's teeth nip at his jugular. He squirmed and wriggled and tried to throw his fists backwards into Sasuke's belly, but there was no force he could use and all his troubles were rewarded with a lustful grown. Sasuke shifted his hips and something hard and growing was pressed against Lee's bottom. "_Nopa desis depann pegou conmim._"

Naruto grimaced. "Sasuke, I don't think you want him."

"Why would you think that?"

"From where I'm standing, I think he might be a virgin."

The body behind him tensed.

Lee himself was as strung as a bow. He knew his face was fiery hot and possibly as red as lava, and he knew his shock and fear was apparent, but there was no hiding that.

He had never felt another man's erection pressed against him before.

"A virgin…"

Naruto reacted instantly to the wonder in Sasuke's voice. "Let him go, Sasuke, just, let me take him. You don't know how to treat virgins, alright?"

Lee's struggled increased tenfold as the erection pressed against him only hardened more.

"I killed for him," Sasuke stated imperiously. "Everything he is, everything he has left, is mine."

Sasuke, in a better state of health than Lee, even after the fight he just went through, half-carried, half-dragged Lee with him down the corridor, their destination unknown thus far to him.

He looked with wild eyes back at the blonde. Naruto glared at Sasuke's back, as if ready to attack him anyway.

"N-Naruto!" he called to the blonde, hating that he was being so open with the man. "Tell my _imou-saeng_ to not be afraid and that she is loved!"

As they turned a sharp corner, he saw Naruto nod solemnly. "_Pren meve tobay!_"

He had not a clue what that meant, but he hoped Naruto had just sworn to do as he wished, despite Lee's less then welcoming greetings.

~""~

He took the room he was in to be Sasuke's private quarters, and he hated to admit that he actually thought it… beautiful.

The floor was tumbled black slate. Tapestries hanging from the walls, ranging from dark blue to bright red to snow white, depicting in one, the beast Lee had seen in the cage, and, in another, a family tree, among other things. There were only three walls and, in place of the fourth, there was a cascading waterfall far enough away that they were not hit with its spray, nor deafened by its roar, but not out of reach either. Its hues of white foam and blue-brown water made Lee stare in perfect awe.

There were not many personal items, he managed to notice after he tore his eyes away from the waterfall (and the question of whether or not it led to a pool or if the room was in the side of a cliff or, even, if the waterfall was simply for decoration). There was a chest and a looming antique wardrobe side by side at one wall and a red marble desk furthest from the waterfall –

Sasuke dropped him heavily on a nest of blankets and pillows, plush and thick and nothing short of a miracle after so long of sleeping on a wooden pallet. It threw him off guard, how comfortable he instantly felt, how his eyes instantly drooped and his exhausted, beaten body screamed for rest the moment the nest melded to his shape and size.

Then Sasuke was above him, using an ornate key to slip him free of his collar and then he was flipped briskly onto his belly so that he could undo the bands that secured his arms and the weights that held his legs down.

So relaxed was he, so very weary, that he didn't realize how submissive and provocative his stance was till Sasuke's hands slipped beneath him to untie the robe and slip it off of him.

Suddenly, he was naked.

Suddenly, Sasuke was too. There was no doubt about that because every bare line of the man's body was pressed flush against him. Sasuke rocked against the crevice of his bottom, sliding dangerously between his cheeks as his hands held Lee's above his head.

Oh, no. Oh, _Gaia_, no.

He was about to be raped.

He jerked and tried to push himself up, to the side, forward, away, in whatever direction he could move.

"_Kalme, mi akouple. Kalm._" Sasuke's voice was surprisingly low and gentle and he nuzzled Lee's braid aside so that he could nip and suck the back of his neck.

His manners made his actions no righter, and Lee continued to struggle. His aching muscles pleaded that he fall still, his fuzzy thoughts demanded that he stop thinking, his heavy eyes begged to fall blind, but he kept fighting, and nothing Sasuke crooned into his ear could make him stop.

Finally, Sasuke merely bit the back of his neck, so dominant in his action that Lee was startled still. The rutting that was taking place against his lower half sped up, Sasuke's fluids wetting the crease of his bottom, and Lee was horrified and disgusted to realize that his own body was reacting, though, luckily, far too tired to give a proper response.

"_Kori ojag shinsuhae kudsio._" The plea slipped out before Lee could swallow it. He refused to beg with his capture, even near tears and very much aware of the fact that Sasuke now held both of his wrists in one hand while the other slipped to stretch his body for Sasuke's forced entrance. He was almost glad that Sasuke did not know his native language.

Then Sasuke was pressing into him and he wished he did, wished that Sasuke knew mercy, wished that he would beg and plead and bargain.

His body was going to be taken, and nothing he had heard about Sasuke suggested that it would be a soft taking.

He closed his eyes tightly and a single milky white tear escaped.

All movement paused as a finger caught it. "What is this?"

Lee swallowed thickly, demanding of himself that he not shed another. "What does it _look_ like?" he snapped.

Sasuke gave him a warning look. "It looks like a pearl."

"I don't even know what a pearl is. That is a teardrop. Doesn't anyone hear cry or is everyone as heartless as you?"

Lee was usually an upbeat character. Helpful, loving, passionate, he had been known for holding no grudges, even against those that had harmed him, and he had loved to find a friend in anyone.

But that Lee was stranded in the skeletal remains of a burnt, desecrated village. Men, women, and children had lost their innocence and their freedom when the slave handlers had forced their way into their homes. Most had even lost their lives.

Aside from his own heart and body, his _imou-saeng_ and the bond they had was all he had had left of his homeland.

It was a rare occasion in history, but Lee _wanted_ to strike out at someone else, he _wanted_ to make someone else hurt, he _wanted_ no one around him to be happy while he was so miserable and ashamed.

He, raised to be a warrior, had failed to save a single soul. Maybe he had helped one or two escape, but there was no proof that they had managed to outrun the slave handlers.

There was no proof, even at this moment, that Naruto was taking good care of his _imou-saeng_. And the thought that his _imou-saeng_ could be screaming for Lee to save her, could be suffering the same fate as him, shattered his resolve and a second, then third, then fourth tear slipped free.

For the first time in years, he was completely and utterly useless, as helpless as a newborn, and as guilty as a murderer.

Sasuke did not acknowledge his jibe and, instead, traced the tracts of his other tears, catching them on his finger as well, painting his pale skin white. "The last time I saw someone cry," he began, leaving to imagination who that someone could have been and why they were crying to begin with, "their tears were scarlet red."

To Lee's relief, Sasuke pulled back. Lee instantly snapped up a blanket and wrapped it around his lower body, grateful for the barrier between himself and Sasuke's apparent hardness.

"A pearl is developed in the belly of an oyster or mollusk, and they looked exactly like these. Except the ideal pearl is perfectly round and smooth." Almost questioningly, Sasuke's tongue came out and licked the trail.

He looked, for a moment, astounded. "It tastes spicy."

"What did you expect it to taste like? _Salty_?" Lee frowned. "Do your scarlet tears taste like blood?"

Sasuke did not deem that worthy of an answer, apparently, because Lee did not get one.

Then his wintery eyes flickered to his and they were filled with a dark sort of insult. "You don't want me to claim you."

"I do not want to be raped!" Lee cried out.

"I killed for you."

"I did not want that either."

They glared at each other for the longest of moments.

Abruptly, Sasuke leaned forward and their lips were meshed together with Lee having no idea how that had come to be.

He had even less of an idea how to fight it. It was as if his system went into shock, spurts of heat boiling in his blood, sparks of awareness dancing along his skin, his mind on halt, and all sensation went to his mouth, his lips, as they tingled warmly, sliding against fiery chapped lips.

Then the other set of lips were gone and Lee groggily opened his eyes, not the least bit curious in when he had even closed them, only to see Sasuke's smug expression of male pride.

"You," Lee bit out, "are a beast."

Sasuke took his erection in hand, not appearing the least bit shy as he rubbed himself down slowly, speculatively even. He did not seem to care that he was finishing himself off as he leered at Lee. "You're not looking away.

He really wanted to, he told himself.

But the deepest, lightest part of himself that wasn't angry, that could never be angered and could never feel hatred, told him that he would very much like to have what Sasuke wanted to give.

But Lee wasn't that part of himself anymore. Lee was angry. Lee was hurt. Lee was exhausted.

Lee was sick and tired of Sasuke already. He tore his eyes away and put every ounce of loathing he had as he glared at the man. "I don't want you."

"_Mentiman._" Sasuke released his member.

It bobbed and the motion attracted Lee's attention back. Angrily, he looked away again.

As if he wasn't fully erect, as if he wasn't aroused or lustful, Sasuke stalked right into the nest and laid down next to Lee, throwing one possessive, locking arm around him.

It was on the tip of Lee's tongue to warn Sasuke to not go to sleep, that Lee could, and would, kill him the first chance he got, but he was smarter than that.

He didn't want to give Sasuke any forewarning.

Moments later, Lee was asleep.

Sasuke pulled Lee's waist-length braid over his shoulder and lazily unwound it, letting the inky tendrils lope and tangle around his fingers. The strangest thrill travelled through him at the contact. Lee sighed gratifyingly and, in his sleep, moved closer to the source of scorching heat that was Sasuke.

Unconscious, Lee could not hold onto his hatred, and Sasuke wrapped his second arm around his new mate.

This was a novel experience for him. Never before had Sasuke ever _cuddled_ with one of his mates. Then again, by the end of the first night, his mates were usually crying themselves to sleep on the furthest edge of the nest, or even on the stone floor.

He smirked ravenously as Lee curled into him.

He did not regret any of the lives he had taken that day.

~""~

Language of the East = Japanese+Korean

Language of the West = Spanish+Latin

_Earth Language_ – Language that every being is born understanding, but may, in time, lose the ability to speak unless practiced.

_Translations:_

_Imou-Saeng _– little sister – Language of the East

"_Tú se siguichen!_" – "You're next!" – Language of the West

"_Eli tiese suechans._" – "She is lucky." – Language of the West

_Espero qou mueri._ – I hope you die. – Language of the West

"_¿Hake visto wé mi akouple?_" – "Have you seen my mate?" – Language of the West

"_Swi_." – "Yes." – Language of the West

"_Esta se mío._" – "This is mine." – Language of the West

"_Ornal opu kaiheo shiyo!_" – "Release me!" – Language of the East

_Onii-saeng_ – Big brother – Language of the East

"_hiba det pata!_" – Cross between "Motherfucker!" and "Bastard!" – Language of the West

"_Nopa desis depann pegou conmim._" – "Do not stop fighting me." – Language of the West

"_Pren meve tobay!_" – Cross between "I promise!" and "I vow!" – Language of the West

"_Kalme, mi akouple. Kalm._" – "Calm, my mate. Calm." – Language of the West

"_Kori ojag shinsuhae kudsio._" – Cross between "Please do not do this." And "Do not perform this act." – Language of the East

"_Mentiman._" – "Liar." – Language of the West.

_Author's Note: So… As you may now, I've been suffering one hell of a writer's block. So, awhile ago, I asked KakaIru (LordLuciola, Lybellulla, etc…) if she would like for me to write anything for her as a gift. She asked for SasuLee. That was all the way back in the beginning of August._

_I got lost for awhile there, so I went to FlippedOutFlippy for advice. She helped me back on the straight and true – and then I completely jumped story ideas and the story she was helping me out on is still unfinished. Hopefully, she won't mind too much…_

_As a safety precaution, because Fanfiction might not agree with this story, I'm posting it in Y!Gallery as well. Or, at least, that's the plan. If no one sees this pop up within two days, get on me to do that. _

_Now, let me explain this story – I have no fucking clue where it came from, how it came to be, or why it is the way it is. I started off with something simple, I think – actually, it was going to be futuristic. But then I kept writing and now I have no idea what time period this is. I mashed languages together, which was fun but confusing as well. And I made a new-ish religion! For those who don't know, Gaia is the earth. _

_This is the first chapter of at least six or eight depending how I split up the draft. _

_So, yes – gift fic for KakaIru. FlippedOutFlippy, I really did appreciate your help. I LOVE ALL OF YOU._


	2. Part 2

Lee had been in Sasuke's possession for little less than a month now.

He had come to loathe every day because, every next day, his loathing abated. The rage he clung to, like his skin would cling to him, drifted further and further away. The invasion and violation of his village, the deaths and kidnapping of all who had been in it, the months of abuse and neglect that had followed, being _fought_ for and having the threat of rape being hung over his head like a horrendous decoration for _Gaida_ – it all became less and less important to hold against a land of people he didn't know.

He hadn't forgotten a moment of it; he hadn't forgotten the look on his _imou-saeng_'s _oh-pit's _face as he had been dragged away from their sides, he hadn't forgotten the crying children he had embraced in the holding cells of the monstrous metal slave ships, he hadn't forgotten his own bruises and broken bones, he hadn't forgotten his _imou-saeng_'s silent tears, and he hadn't forgotten the blood seeping from his adopted _apoto's_ head wound.

Slowly, though, it was being forgiven. He had no right to be enraged against a nation when not every man, woman, and child of the West had taken part in the destruction of his homeland. No, that was a rage he had to hold for the few he had seen there, and, from time to time, he still saw them in the corridors of the place he was held in. Sometimes, when Sasuke took him to a different room where there were windows, he could look out into a bustling town and still make out their faces.

They were the ones he hated.

And Sasuke was becoming that much less of the enemy every time he saw a familiar person.

Lee was still bony, but Sasuke fed him handsomely every day, with different sweets and delicacies that Lee ogled. Some sort of sauce called mole that went on spicy chicken, papaya juice, bonbon sirop drizzled with agave honey, lychee jam spread on benitas pain de mais…

Those were only a few of the plates, and all of them were things Lee had never heard of before.

At first, he had thought about not eating, simply because Sasuke occasionally tried to force the food down his throat, but that would have accomplished nothing. He had had no decent escape plan, and the few he had had would never had gotten him home, but it wouldn't have done to be weak and starving either when he had to defend himself against Sasuke's obviously growing hunger.

Then Sasuke had led him into a room that seemed to be completely of water except for one sliver of a walkway around it. He had been shocked when Sasuke had said that it was a bath, and even more affronted when Sasuke had begun stripping and had ordered him to do the same thing.

In his homeland, they had had natural hot springs and had first rinsed themselves off before getting into them.

Sasuke merely stepped over the edge and a great plume of water shot up as he fell beneath the liquid surface. When he had come back up, he had grabbed Lee by his hips and swung him over his head into the clear depths.

Lee had never swam before, and Sasuke had been properly contrite as he had brought Lee to the shallow end of the pool near a line of colored bottles and cloths.

"I'll teach you how to swim," Sasuke had said sternly, as if the fact that Lee couldn't hold his own in the deep end somehow offended him.

Nearly a month later and Lee could race, and beat, Sasuke to the other end of the pool.

Maybe that was another reason why Sasuke wasn't his first enemy anymore.

He sat primly on the edge of the nest, using a simply wooden brush to smooth and untangle his long ropes of hair. Today, he told himself, he would wear a ponytail.

Simply because Sasuke had requested that he wear his hair down. He couldn't help the small grin that lightened his features at the show of defiance, however miniscule it was.

A hand squeezed the back of his neck. Sasuke crouched beside him with the stillness and peace of a true predator.

Lee ignored him like a true spouse – a very unwilling, very _angry_ spouse. Even if he wasn't that angry. He wanted to be, though. The thought of feeling that raging blaze of fury in his heart again made him considerably happier.

"We're going to the courtyard," Sasuke told him. "If you try to run away, I will catch you. If you try to harm anyone, I will punish you." He dipped his head and Lee shuddered as Sasuke nibbled on his throat.

Part of it was disgust. Another part was disgust at the lust that sizzled down his spine and pooled low in his gut.

Sasuke wasn't that bad, his lust argued. He took care of Lee, some could even say he spoiled him, as he had brought pearls and golden wristlets and anklets for him, decorating him.

Sasuke had already tried to rape him, his disgust shot back. His disgust wondered if the molestation that had happened could honestly be forgotten so quickly.

His lust was submerged in waves of anger and stubborn pride.

"By all means," Sasuke purred, "try to harm someone."

"I would not harm someone that didn't deserve to be harmed," Lee snapped. "Kindly remove your teeth from my flesh."

Sasuke dipped two fingers under his chin and turned his head towards him.

It was a testimony to how often it happened that Lee did not fight the kiss. When Sasuke had shown an unlikely chivalry in not finishing in his rape, or trying to do such again, he had never stopped kissing him.

This early in the morning, not even noon yet, it was already their third kiss, and the familiar shocks of awareness it left made Lee worse for wear before Sasuke pulled away and growled hungrily.

Lee took a green thong and tied his hair up. The look on Sasuke's face while he did it was a reward within itself and he smirked as he stood to his feet.

He surpassed a mound of gold and pearls and donned a simple green sarape and light cotton trousers. Sasuke was already dressed, thankfully, in a pair of black pyjama pants with knee cuffs. He was even wearing a vest, despite the fact that it wasn't closed and appeared of too little fabric to even be closed to begin with.

With a secretive smirk playing on Sasuke's mouth, he led him out of their – _Sasuke's_ – private quarters.

It was the first time Lee had left the edifice since arriving. He hadn't gotten a good look at it the first time around, really. Sasuke had had him thrown over his back like a sack of rice till they had come just within the entrance before making him walk.

Now, leaving it, Lee was startled by the fortress that had held him.

It was impossibly tall, carved into the side of a mountain. Lee, standing so close to it, could not even see the very top of it. Every few levels, there was a statue of a demon, each with one tail less than the statue that had come before it.

These were the nine guardians of the moon and destruction, Lee knew. It was a World Legend, the story of how a single man had once split the guardians from a single being that would have brought about the end of all things.

Towering down one face of the mountain was a waterfall. It never reached the ground; instead, it wisped, curling and misting in air, mere meters from the ground, it was so long and the mountain so tall.

"Impressive, isn't it?" Sasuke whispered into his ear.

"How many people _live_ here?"

"A few hundred." By the tone of Sasuke's voice, he didn't seem to find anything special about this. "It's the Tower of Leaves and Flames. Or, in the Language of the West, _Leho sou Difue_."

"_Gaia_," Lee gasped.

"It's not _that_ impressive." Sasuke fiddled with his hair.

It wasn't until he felt his long, inky tresses flutter against his back that he realized Sasuke had just undone his tie. "I don't like you. At all."

Sasuke answered him with a kiss that made his toes curl and then led him towards a maze wall of trees Lee had never known existed.

Sasuke muttered the names of them as they passed them, pulling towards an entrance he didn't see till they were in it.

Blue palm… Rosewood… Pistache… Ebony… Mesquite…

They turned an invisible corner and they were suddenly in the center of the maze. That, or the maze had more than one sitting area.

There were benches of red mahogany and black walnut. There was a small, manmade pond and a cluster of trees that Sasuke whispered to be copey surrounded it, blooming with white flowers and round, green fruit.

In the cluster's shade were two forms. One, Lee recognized to be Naruto because of his sunny blonde hair.

It was the other that made Lee's breath catch. "I-_Imou-saeng_?"

The woman's head spun in his direction, black hair flying. White eyes narrowed tearfully on him. "_Onii-saeng_?"

~""~

Sasuke and Naruto sat at the side of the pond, talking in matter-of-fact tones with each other in their own tongue. For all Lee and his _imou-saeng_ knew, they could have been talking about anything from business to the nature around them.

They sat in the shade of the copeys, legs folded beneath themselves, so close their knees touched as they faced each other. They clung to each other's hands like lifelines, unbreakable, yet fragile chains that fastened them together.

Her hands were so pale and smooth compared to his. His were rough from work, still slightly dark from days spent in the sun. His hands and wrists were unadorned while she wore a wristlet of purple alabaster and a necklace of strung lilac pearls. It upset Lee, to see her necklace. He was sure Naruto had seen her cry, and he could only hope it had been because she had been upset about everything that had happened, and not because of anything Naruto might have done.

His _imou-saeng_ broke the silence first, speaking in their own language. "_I have a secret to tell you._"

Lee looked up from their hands to study her face. Her cheeks were flushed red, her eyes downcast, and she was worrying her bottom lip between her even teeth.

She was nervous. Whatever secret it was, she was afraid of how Lee would react.

"_What is it?_" he asked softly

"_I… I want to give myself to Naruto._"

Lee's world exploded in a million shards of shattered sanity. "_What?_"

"_When he saw how upset I was the first night, he left me untouched. Every day and night after that, he would ask me before he would even brush my hair or help me stand. He's so kind and sweet, big brother! I think… No, I know… I've fallen in love with him._"

He struggled to understand her, a faint roar of rage and disbelief in the back of his mind making it difficult to hear correctly.

"_He has been so patient and protective. Whenever anyone tries to touch me, he's there to defend me and say that I'm not a slave or a prize, but a human being. He's nothing like the people who captured us, I swear._"

Lee had only had one episode where someone had tried to take him against his will, aside from the single time with Sasuke. He had been in the pool, Sasuke at the other end, and a third man had joined them, making Sasuke look slightly miffed by his presence alone.

Then he had tried to push Lee against the side of the pool, obviously thinking it his right to have at the _little foreigner_ as Lee had come to realize was a pet name for people like him. Sasuke had looked as if he was about murder the man, but Lee had been strong that day, well fed and healthy, and he had showed the forceful admirer just how much of a warrior he still was.

Sasuke had looked entirely too pleased as they had left the bath that day, an unconscious body so precariously balanced on an edge of the pool that even the slightest nudge would have capsized him into the water.

Lee drifted his thumb over the back of her hand. "_If you… If you believe you're in love, then I support your choice._"

It took a lot out of him to say that. He knew that Naruto wasn't responsible for their capture or enslavement. He knew Naruto wasn't involved with the annihilation of his village. But Naruto had still taken her as a _prize_. He had killed, not to defend another or even to protect future generations, but for the rights to control someone else's life.

But someone else would have won her if Naruto hadn't stepped into the Ring, Lee reasoned with himself. Someone who wouldn't have been patient with the kind and beautiful little woman. Someone who would have forced their way between her legs, who would have taken her innocence without a second thought.

Suddenly, Lee was feeling grateful towards the blonde. It made his decision less of a burden as he smiled at his _imou-saeng_. "_I want only for your happiness, little sister. I promised, years ago, when I bonded with you as a sibling, that nothing would ever come between us. Naruto is… a good man, I think. You make him sound like one, and I trust your judgment above anyone else's._"

She smiled back at him, a watery, joyous smile. "_Thank you, big brother. Thank you!_" She held a sleeve of her Chiapas blouse to her eyes and Lee let her hide beneath the white fabric till she had herself under control. "_Has he been treating you well?_" she asked after a few short moments. "_Naruto tries to tell me that you're okay, but he always looks worried whenever he talks about you._"

Lee determined how to answer that without lying. Aside from the experience of their first night, Sasuke _had_ been treating him well. Lee played the part of a furious house guest and Sasuke remained ever courteous, though there were times when Sasuke's wintery eyes flashed dangerously and, sometimes, he would force Lee down and sit on him till Lee was calm. Once, they had sat in a glaring contest for well over four hours. Every once in awhile, Sasuke would slap the back of his head if he felt Lee wasn't listening to him, or he would nibble and bite at him if he wanted his full attention.

Otherwise, though, considering the things Sasuke wanted to do to him, and never bothered to hide wanting to do to him, Sasuke had been treating him pretty well.

It almost made Lee rethink his actions over the past month. Because, like her, he could have ended up with someone worse, because, with seven contenders in the Ring, it would have been impossible to end up with no one.

He wondered, chillingly, what happened to those who were won by no one, and a vision of one boy he had seen from one of the windows rose up behind his eyes, the dead look of his eyes and the collar around his throat, being dragged on a leash by a man shouting in several different languages that a night of pleasure was promised for a few measly coins.

Then he reminded himself of the fact that Sasuke would take his agreeable nature as a submission and most likely try to mount him again.

No, no… He was best off fighting till the day he died.

"_I am okay_," he told her truthfully. His heart still hurt, would possibly always hurt, over the conditions in which that had brought them to the West, but, otherwise, he was fine. Physically, emotionally, he was healing. "_He doesn't hurt me._"

She frowned. "_Do you like him?_"

His first thought was to say _no_ with as much venom and hatred as possible. But then his second thought made him pause.

_Did_ he like him? He didn't have any deep emotions for Sasuke, but, as a friend or even as a rival, did Lee enjoy Sasuke's company?

Not when he was being perverted, but Lee would admit, that staring content continued to amuse him whenever he remembered it. Here he was, in a maze with his _imou-saeng_, Sasuke a decent distance away, and it hadn't even occurred to him to grab her and run away as fast as he could.

"_He's okay_," he settled for lamely, deciding that he would consider his feelings for Sasuke later when he had more time.

He always had time nowadays, he thought to himself bitterly. He used to always be busy, hunting, farming, fishing, fending off other village boys because they couldn't believe how lithe he was for all of his activities. His _apoto_ had been lithe as well, and his _okaa-ma_ exceptionally tiny, his adopted _apoto_ had told him. His adopted _apoto_ had been only slightly more muscular.

Now, all he ever did was eat, sleep, bathe, and fend off Sasuke.

She considered him with her colorless eyes, as if trying to detect a lie. When she found none, she smiled again. "_I'm glad. I want you to be happy too, big brother. Has he… Have you two…?_" Her face was brazen red and Lee feared she would pass out at any moment if she didn't remember to breathe.

"_He tried to, the first night_," he admitted, and she sucked in a deep, horrified breath. "_He stopped._"

"_Thank Gaia._"

He nodded, sharing the sentiment.

"_There is a waterfall in Sasuke's room_," he said, hoping she would appreciate the beauty of the vision and that they could keep talking.

Her eyes widened with awe. Then she grinned. "_There is a frog farm in ours. They grow so big! Naruto said that there is a frog that towers over the surrounding forests as if they were just sprouts and that he has a sour temper whenever Naruto calls on him._"

"_Frogs can't get that big!_"

"_This one can._"

"_That is amazing!_" Lee cried out. "_What do they eat?_"

She opened her mouth, shut it, and then stared blankly at him. "_I… don't… know… I've never seen them eat. Maybe I could ask them._"

"_That would be a good idea._" Talking about frogs made him miss the land turtles from his own home. They had had tales to tell, ancient tales, and a few even let travelers ride on their backs as they recounted their stories. It had been Lee's favorite pastime as a child, to climb onto a turtle's back and listen to the creature tell him about legends and stories and myths.

He wondered if any of the turtles had escaped the capturers unharmed, or if they were being sold as exotic pets. One could not make a pet of a turtle – turtles went at their own pace, and offered no amusement unless they wanted to.

Were frogs the same way? He furrowed his brows curiously.

"_Your hair is down for once_," she pointed out softly. "_I like it._"

"_I don't. It gets everywhere and tangles and it clings to me when it's wet._" But Lee would never cut it.

When he had vowed to take her on as a little sister at the age of nine, they had made their hair the physical manifestation of their bond. He could only cut it if she disowned him, or if she died, and she could only cut it for the same reasons. Anything else and…

Lee didn't even know what would happen.

"_Do you want me to braid it for you?_" she offered.

Lee looked up.

As if sensing his gaze on him, Sasuke looked over at the same time. Or, maybe, Sasuke had been staring at him for awhile. Either way, their eyes met and the visual connection sizzled between them. There were forbidden things promised in Sasuke's dark eyes as he smirked lewdly. Naruto squawked and punched Sasuke in the chest, demanding his attention back, but it wasn't till Lee managed to tear his eyes away that Naruto got what he wanted.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Naruto go flying into the pond. His _imou-saeng_ gasped and rushed to her feet, coming to the side of the pond to help the blonde out.

"We're leaving now," Sasuke announced, strolling towards Lee at an unhurried pace.

So much for having his _imou-saeng_ braid his hair.

"Hinata, did you see that?" Naruto snarled. ""_Hiba det pata!_"

Sasuke merely smirked.

Lee looked up at Sasuke, not wanting to look upset, but not able to help it either. "When will I get to see my _imou-saeng_ next?" He didn't know what he would do if Sasuke said he would never see her again. This moment of happiness would be enough to last him the rest of his life, if he relived it every moment he could, wearing out the edges of the memory like a painting that had been caressed too often. But he didn't want this to be the last time he saw her. The separation he already had to deal with was bad enough.

Sasuke appeared thoughtful for a moment. "Naruto and I will discuss dates that you two can meet on."

Lee went limp with relief. It was not overlooked by Sasuke, and something almost went soft in his expression as he offered a hand down to him.

There was a chance that there was a meaning behind the gesture, an offering or a promise or something else. But Lee was happy. Lee wasn't going to have to go without his _imou-saeng_ as he had feared when she had first been ripped out of his arms.

So he took Sasuke's hand and was pulled to his feet. Then pulled to Sasuke's chest. And then Sasuke was kissing him, long and deep and with a hint of something that had never been there before, something Lee thought could be gentle and patient if it hadn't been for the tongue that licked at the seam of his mouth.

Naruto snapped in the background. "Get a room!"

~""~

Lee sat on the very edge of the room, stretching his feet out to touch the thunderous fall of water.

Suddenly, there was a hand on the nape of his neck, teeth at the junction of his throat and shoulder, and Sasuke growled as he wrapped an arm around Lee's waist. The hand at his neck wandered down to feel Lee through his sarape.

He shuddered before he could stop himself and his body leaned into Sasuke's touch. The man smirked against his flesh and Lee shivered.

"You're tired," Sasuke tried to convince him. "You want to rest… in my nest… in my arms… where we'll wake up in the morning and I'll make a man of you…"

Lee threw his shoulders back and dislodged Sasuke. "I'm already a man!"

"Are you?" Sasuke nipped his jaw in punishment. "I was under the impression that you've never been touched… till I came along."

"Sex," Lee blushed at the word, "does not make a man."

"Says the virgin."

Lee huffed and pulled his hair over his shoulder. His deft fingers pulled and loped each strand into one thick rope, perfecting the image of ignoring Sasuke.

The overwhelming heat that came off of Sasuke in waves settled close to him – far too close. Sasuke's front was pressed against his back and his legs were bent on either side of him. The arm that was around his waist pulled impossibly closer.

Lee sucked in a deep breath as Sasuke's clothed erection pressed into the small of his back.

Gaia, not again…

"Relax," Sasuke purred into his ear, right before he pulled his ear lobe between his teeth. "You're safe for now, _mi akouple_."

"I don't feel safe."

"Have I ever lied about my intentions?"

Lee stared down at his cold, wet feet. No, he hadn't. Lee already knew that, Sasuke had been very open and unashamedly forward about his wants and desires.

"Then what are you doing?"

"Relieving boredom."

"I'm sure there's something else you can do."

"Well, what I want to _do_ is being uncooperative. For now, I'm just…"

"Bothering me."

"One would think, with the way you smiled at Hinata, that you were a person to love company."

Lee opened and shut his mouth in quick succession. Then, sighing, he went for painful honesty. "The situation in which that brought me here did not leave me wanting for a stranger to rub himself against me and treat me like a pet."

He almost expected Sasuke to get irritated or angry.

Instead, he snickered into Lee's ear. "If you were my pet, I assure you, I would have already taught you to do some very pleasurable tricks."

Lee would not dignify that with an answer. He stuck his chin up in the air and told himself that his face felt hot because Sasuke was a living, breathing fire. Not because of his own mortification. He cleared his throat and changed the subject. "What do you do in the winter?"

Having a waterfall during the summer would be nice and cool, no doubt. But, then, summer did not last all year. The floor had to become ice and the water had to become bitingly frigid.

"Winter?"

Lee frowned. "Yes, when the air gets cold and the ground is hard. Animals migrate? Falling snow?"

"Snow…" Sasuke's chin settled on his shoulder. "That must be an Eastern word."

"It's wet and cold and it falls from the sky," Lee struggled to explain. Everyone knew what snow was.

"… You mean rain."

"No, I mean snow. Snow is white when it falls from the sky."

"White rain."

"No, rain is rain. Rain happens all year around, but there is only one season for snow. Winter."

"I know you don't know my language, but the least you can do is use the Earth Language."

"I _am_ using the Earth Language."

"I've never heard of things called winter and snow before," Sasuke told him. "We have growing seasons. Not everything we farm grows at the same time or same rate as everything else."

"But doesn't it get cold here?"

"Some days."

Lee sat there, absolutely astounded. There was no winter here. No snow. If there wasn't snow, and it wasn't always cold, then there was most likely no ice.

Sasuke chuckled softly and pressed a kiss to his jaw. "We just had a nonviolent conversation."

Lee scowled and rubbed his hand over the offended skin. "You couldn't let it stay that way, could you?"

"I was taking advantage of the situation. I have you in my arms, we're discussing the weather, and there's a waterfall. The moment was set for a kiss."

"Careful, Sasuke, that almost sounded sweet."

"You liked it." Sasuke nuzzled behind his ear. "Your ears turn as red as your face does when you react to me."

"That means nothing!"

"I knew the civility couldn't last." Sasuke turned his head and pressed a hard, hungry kiss to his lips.

If the kiss lasted a while longer than it usually did, Lee was too far gone to care.

~""~

_Translations:_

_Gaida_ – an international holiday celebrating the birth of the Earth, celebrated much like Christmas except on the summer and winter solstices.

_Oh-pit – _Cousin – Language of the East

_Apoto – _dad/father – Language of the East

Adopted _Apoto_ – A man who takes an orphan, or unwanted child, as his own son or daughter; a man who is taken in

_Leho sou Difue_ – Leaf on Fire – Language of the West

_Onii-saeing_ – Big sister – Language of the East

_Okaa-ma_ – mom/mother – Language of the East

_Mi akouple_ – My mate – Language of the West

_Alfelaches_ – Cowards or Weaklings – Language of the West

_Author's Note: -dignity laugh- Of COURSE the characters are in character! Why wouldn't they be? … Okay, maybe they're not. BUT I TRIED._

_I do not own any of the Naruto characters. _


	3. Part 3

Sasuke loomed above him, black eyes penetrating Lee as surely as his body was penetrating his. He could feel Sasuke deep inside of him, like another part of himself coming home, and Lee could feel his heart fluttering madly in his throat, and he could hear his own gasping cries and grunts.

Sasuke was speaking to him in his Western language, every smooth lilt and croon dragging over Lee's sensitive skin like nails. His language had always been arousing, like audible nectar that flowed through Lee. Except, this time, Lee could understand him.

"_So tight,_" Sasuke was saying, droplets of sweat dotting his handsome features, his broad shoulders and beautiful face blocking out the rest of the world. "_You feel so good around me._"

Lee looked down between them. His belly was a slight slope between him and Sasuke's hard torso.

There was a life in there, he knew. It was the life he and Sasuke had created. Love for his mate and child swamped his entire being and, when he looked back up into Sasuke's face, his emotions were reflected in the man's black eyes.

"_I love you_," Sasuke whispered, and the kiss he bestowed upon Lee was full of nothing but love and need.

"You must be having a very good dream," husked a voice into his ear.

Lee's eyes snapped open. Sasuke was not looming above him, but was lying beside him, an arm lazily over Lee's midsection. He smirked as Lee flushed crimson red, very much aware of the erection he was sporting. Sasuke rocked his hips against Lee's thigh.

Sasuke was having the same problem as Lee, he realized bemusedly. And he seemed to expect Lee to do something about it, if the wicked gleam in his eyes was anything to go by.

"When did you get under the blankets with me?" he asked dully, his mind and body not quite connecting after such a shocking awakening. Beneath the covers, his hand sought out his belly.

It was flat and hard. There was no swell, no growing life, and Lee felt no relief when he realized this.

All he felt was empty.

It must be because of his _imou-saeng's_ recent news, he mused. She had been glowing as she had told him of the baby she and Naruto were expecting. She was twelve weeks along now, and her baby bump was large enough that she could cup it in one hand.

"You dragged me under the covers," Sasuke answered haughtily.

"I did not!"

"But you did. I don't think you know just how active you are in your sleep."

"You're lying."

"_Mi akouple_," Sasuke crooned, reminding Lee vividly of how he had felt about Sasuke speaking the Western language in his dream, "you're the reason for why I'm like this. Or don't you remember rubbing up against me?" He nipped Lee's shoulder. "You made me hungry. You and those sounds you were making. Was I touching you in your dream?"

Lee growled. "No. Another man was."

Lee had seen Sasuke move quickly before. He had seen him be a flash of movement before, as quick as lightning.

But he had never seen him be this quick before, and his strength really was great as he held Lee's wrists above his head, straddling his waist and glaring down at him with such possessive fury that Lee burned from the mere contact of his eyes.

"Another man better _not_ have. You're mine. You're not allowed to dream about other men, you're only allowed to fantasize about me, you're only allowed to want _me_."

"Gaia, Sasuke, are you listening to yourself?" Lee yelped. "You sound like a child!"

Sasuke cocked his head to the side. "Do I?"

"Yes!" he hissed. "Like a baby that isn't getting what he wants."

"Oh? Then, if I'm a baby, I better start acting the part, right?" Sasuke's head dipped and, for a second, Lee thought he was going to kiss him.

But then his mouth landed on Lee's chest, and he cried out in surprise and pleasure as Sasuke's skilled tongue toyed with one of his nipples before dragging it into Sasuke's mouth. He suckled it, as if he really was a babe at his mother's teat.

Lee felt the fight leaving him. Did he really want to fight? _Did he_? A part of him did. A part of him that could see blood and fire and ships and metal doors and cages. But even a larger part of him wanted him to let go.

Maybe his willingness was because of four months of Sasuke constantly pressuring him.

Maybe he really wanted Sasuke.

Maybe he just wanted his dream to come true.

The last maybe made him at least try to want to struggle. What were the chances that Sasuke would ever love him? Lee had been told from the very beginning that he would be the man's plaything, that he would be cast aside once Sasuke was done with him, that Sasuke would break him.

He didn't want that.

Sasuke released his nipple and went to the next, making little sucking noises as he pulled and tugged, as if he honestly expected Lee to start producing breast milk.

Even though Lee _could_, as a male carrier, do that, he would have to be pregnant first. And he refused, would not bear the thought of it, to have Sasuke's child.

He had no assurance that Sasuke would care for their child as much as he would.

Sasuke pulled away with a mock pout. "_Maman_, I'm thirsty. Why won't you give me your essence?" He smirked. "I know!"

Sasuke kissed a trail down his chest, down his belly, nudging blankets aside so that he could nibble on Lee's prominent hipbone.

Lee didn't know what Sasuke was after till his mouth was poised over Lee's half-hard erection. His heart stopped. "Don't," he whispered, just as Sasuke went to lower his head. "I was dreaming about you," he admitted shamefully.

"Why don't I make your dream come true, then?" Sasuke crooned.

"You can't." Lee forced back tears. "You couldn't if you tried."

"Have more faith in me." Sasuke only then looked up. All amusement and heat was swept away as he took in Lee's heartbroken expression.

"In my dream, you loved me."

~""~

Naruto had gifted his _imou-saeng_ with a pectoral circle the day they had learned of her pregnancy. It was silver, secured with a chain made of diamond dust. It would never break, it would never come undone, it would always remain _perfect_.

Like their love, really. Every time Naruto looked at her, it was as if he had found the sun after years in darkness. His eyes lit up and his smile would stretch from ear to ear. He always had to be touching her, holding her hand, brushing her hair behind her ear, putting his hand on her lower back, rubbing her baby bump.

Now that she had told him that he didn't need to ask for permission to touch her anymore, he was taking full advantage of it. He would lean over and kiss her randomly, her forehead, her cheek, the tip of her nose, her lips. He would nibble on her jaw, her ear, or just rest his head on her shoulder. He would wrap his arm around her waist, pull her tight to his side, and hold on as if the wind would snag her and take her away if he dared let go.

He treasured her. She was like the last of a precious stone, the last drop of pure water in the world, and she was his.

As if it was not already apparent just how much he adored her, he had bonded with her. In his right ear was a bar earring, a word of the Eastern Language inscribed in it – _Our_.

In his _imou-saeng's_ left ear was the matching bar earring, except, written in the Western Language, was stamped _– love_.

It made a complete set.

Lee walked a few steps behind them at the market. Lately, Sasuke had been pushing him on the bonded couple a lot. He went out of his way to spend as little time with Lee as possible, even sleeping on the opposite edge of the nest. The night before, when Lee had been daring enough to scoot closer to him, missing his warmth and the weight of his arm around him, something he had never thought he would miss, Sasuke had merely gotten out of the nest and left.

Lee had been exhausted for days now. He had gotten so used to Sasuke being right beside him as he slept that he had been caught in fretful, uneasy rest ever since Sasuke had moved away.

He would even admit to being slightly depressed. Sasuke wouldn't fight with him anymore. There were no more glaring contests, no more random kisses, no punishing nips and no dirty, whispered words. There were no more baths together, so they couldn't have water wars and Lee couldn't race him anymore. If Lee wasn't with Naruto, then Lee was stuck, alone, in Sasuke's private quarters, staring at a curtain of ever-flowing water to pass the time.

"_Onii-saeng?_"

Lee jerked out of his debilitating thoughts, just realizing that his _imou-saeng_ had stopped moving and the couple was looking back at him with unmasked concern.

"Are you alright?" his _imou-saeng_ asked.

Lee couldn't bring himself to lie to her, but he didn't want to talk about it either. So he just shook his head and tried to redirect the conversation. "Naruto, why do you have to fight for a mate?"

It had been a question on his mind for awhile now. At first, he had just assumed that the Westerners only fought for slaves. Then he had overheard a conversation where a man had growled that he had lost his intended in the Ring and that he should have kept their relationship a secret.

His _imou-saeng_ looked at Naruto curiously, apparently wondering the same thing.

Naruto rubbed the back of his head, looking dumfounded that he would ask such a question. "Well, you have to be strong enough for a mate, y'know? If you can't prove that you can fight for your mate and win, why have a mate?"

"Because of love," Lee answered with a slight bitter edge. "Love shouldn't just be for the strong."

Naruto seemed confused by his attitude. "How di-do people choose mates in your country?" he asked.

His _imou-saeng_ answered softly, "If you liked someone, you would court them. If it evolved into love, you would bond."

"Oh, like we did?"

She smiled and nodded. "Like we did." And the sun hit between them at just the right angle to make both of their earrings glitter, as if the universe smiled down upon their coupling.

He leaned down and pressed a gentle kiss to her lips. "_Temwe amen_," he whispered.

"_Temwe amen_," she crooned back, blushing.

Lee had been around them enough to know what that meant – _temwe amen_, Western for _I love you_.

Lee looked away, suddenly in pain and not entirely sure why.

"Hey, look, tablet cocoye!" Naruto pulled his bonded towards a vendor stand and Lee followed behind them.

He wasn't hungry, but he accepted one of the coconut treats when Naruto handed it to him, not wanting to seem rude. The treat settled hard and lumpy in his stomach, though he knew it must taste delicious if Naruto and his _imou-saeng's_ expressions were anything to go by.

He wondered if Sasuke liked tablet cocoye.

And then he knew. It hit him incredibly hard, nearly unsettling the devoured tablet cocoye.

He was in love with Sasuke!

Across the market, a familiar blonde woman looked up and saw Lee. She smirked coyly. "_Well, well, it looks like Sasuke's plaything is still breathing._" She spoke in her native language.

A man looked up from his work, a decapitated doll that he had been commissioned to repair. "_What are you talking about, Temari?_"

She cocked her head in Lee's direction. "_Sasuke won that little foreigner awhile ago. He looks a little worse for wear, but…_"

The man grunted in acknowledgement. "_I see what you mean. Sasuke's past toys take months before they can walk straight again. Didn't the last one have a permanent limp?_"

The blonde crossed her long legs, squeezing her thighs together against her womanhood's pulsing. "_Sasuke, that dog._"

She wouldn't mind having the man kill for her, even if he was younger than her. It had been awhile since the last time she had been fucked real good. Her late mate had left her, though, and for another man at that, and it was hard for her to find a mate strong and virile enough to fulfill her needs. She always requested to go into the Ring with her contenders. If they couldn't defeat her, they most certainly weren't allowed to fuck her.

But she knew Sasuke could beat her. He could hold her down and take her right there in the Ring. Even in his beast form. The very thought of it made her push her thighs closer together. Maybe she should approach Sasuke and ask him to be her mate.

His new plaything must have been boring, to be left in such a decent state.

The man took in her stance and grimaced. "_Temari, get out of here if you're going to get dirty thoughts! I have customers that come here, you know._"

"_You can always close shop for a day._"

She managed to look away from the little foreigner, thought it was slightly harder to stop thinking humorously of how the man must have failed miserably in bed. Looking to the side, all thoughts of Sasuke and lust and fucking and little foreigners dissipated.

She sat up straight and nudged the man she was with.

He swore as his fine tools scraped the doll's wooden torso, creating a scar. "_What the fuck was that f-_"

A broad, yet short man was making his way towards them. His features were hidden by a hooded cowl, though, like most of the men in the West, he forewent any sort of shirt. Burgundy slacks hugged his legs.

He stopped in front the man's shop and lifted his head. Pale blue-green eyes pierced them both. "_How is business today, big brother?_" he asked softly in a deep, husky voice. Tufts of thick, scarlet hair escaped the hood.

The man slowly stood up, as if faced with a monster that he did not want to alert to his fear. "_Good. Business is good. What are you doing here, Gaara? Not that you're unwelcomed, but…_"

"_You've never been one for crowds, little brother,_" the woman saved gallantly. "_The market is crowded today._"

He cocked his head towards her. "_I felt like taking a walk._"

He followed the line of sight she had had as they both ducked their heads in fear of him. He focused on the little foreigner.

For the first time in a long time, she felt pity for another human being. Gaara only ever stared at things that interested him, or when he was deep in thought.

She studied the little foreigner in a whole new light. He wore orange pyjama pants and a green rebozo top. His bare arms were thin and his bottom was round and firm, shown every time he took a step and the pants pressed against his backside. He had a lithe form, she realized, with a slim waist. He had a roundish face with huge dark eyes set into it, a small button nose, and a pouty mouth. Glossy black bangs curled outwards against his features, and a long rope of a braid swept down his back to toss lightly at the beginning of his ass.

He was taller than Gaara, but lacked masculine mass. Then again, he _was_ a male carrier. They always tended to look a little more feminine.

Gaara glanced at her. "_I want him_," he told her, almost demanded of her as if she was supposed to purchase the little foreigner for him. "_Does he have a mate?_"

She nodded slowly. "_He belongs to Sasuke of the Uchiha Clan, descendent of the –_" she wisely shut up as he cut a glare at her that was so sharp, it could have sliced clean through a diamond. "_Of course, you already know who Sasuke is._" She gathered herself as he turned thoughtfully to the little foreigner. "_I don't think you want him – not that I'm telling you what you do or don't want – but we all know how Sasuke leaves his mates. This one looks almost untouched. Could you imagine how boring he must be, if even Sasuke couldn't find a good use for him in bed?_"

"_Untouched…_" Gaara sounded quite taken with the idea.

She gulped and looked pleadingly towards the man, her younger brother. He cleared his throat. "_What happened to your last mate, Gaara?_"

"_She died._" He lifted a hand and held it in the air, a gesture for them to be silent. "_I want him,_" he said again. "_Big sister, tell Sasuke that I will fight him for his mate._"

"_Are you sure he's worth fighting Sasuke over?_" she nearly pleaded. "_I'm sure you could find something a little more… Yes. I'll go tell Sasuke that you will fight him for his mate._"

It was a sad tragedy, when a big sister was properly and thoroughly cowed just by one glare from her youngest sibling.

Then again, her youngest sibling was a monster.

~""~

_Translations:_

"_Mi akouple_," – "My mate," – Language of the West

_Maman_ – mom/mommy – Language of the West

"_Temwe amen_," – "I love you," – Language of the West

_Pectoral Circle – a necklace where the pendent rests low on the chest; the circle is a symbol for the earth, infinity, unity, wholeness, everything, cycles, and other things._

_Bonding Ritual – Eastern Customs – a private ceremony of just the party involved, usually two people or three upon rare occasion. The party is to speak their vows to each other in private, as vows are sacred and can not be overheard, and then exchange or create something to manifest and/or symbolize their bond(s). To break a bond, the manifestation of the bond must be destroyed._


	4. Part 4

Lee walked into Sasuke's private quarters. _Their_ private quarters, he amended silently to himself. Theirs for however long Sasuke kept him.

He racked his brain, trying to determine the very moment he fell in love with Sasuke. Between the arguments and the semi-surrenders and the glares, when had he had time to fall in love? Now that, that was absurd! It didn't make any sense, none at all.

But, then again, he was thinking of love, and his adopted _apoto_ had always said that love was magnificent, passionate, and, most of all, downright confusing.

He had never realized it would be _this_ confusing, though.

Not too long ago, just months before, he had known he had had no deep feelings for Sasuke. Not much had happened, just what had become usual – they had eaten together, they had bathed together, they had slept together, and they had kept company with Naruto and his _imou-saeng_ together. Lee had had to fend off an attacker or two and there had been that one time Sasuke caught one of Lee's molesters and practically ripped his arm out of his socket.

He trifled with the small package in his hands as he looked up from the ground. It wasn't really important when he had fallen in love, he supposed. He couldn't really fall out of love, and it wouldn't change how he felt, he told himself. It was too late for anything to change that.

Apparently, he thought sulkily to himself, absence did make the heart fonder. It had taken Sasuke ignoring him to realize just how much he loved having the man's attention on him. Even if all they did was fight.

Gaia, how was that a healthy relationship or a good way to fall in love?

Sasuke sat at his desk, writing on papyrus paper. He didn't look up as Lee edged closer.

"Sasuke, I…" He swallowed thickly.

There had been that one time, back at home, when he had had a crush on a girl. That had been instantaneous, as soon as he had set eyes on her. He had been bouncing off the walls to please her, proclaiming his love to her whenever she was in sight, and showering her with small gifts. This felt nothing like that little crush.

This felt like his life would depend upon Sasuke looking at him. "I have a tablet cocoye for you. We went to the market today, Naruto, _imou-saeng_, and I, and it was the first time I ever had one. I think they're good." He couldn't remember for the life of him how it had tasted.

Wintery black eyes glanced up at him. They were hard and cold and Lee suddenly felt incredibly uncomfortable as he stood there.

Inexplicably, looking up at him, they softened. Sasuke even _smiled_ a little, and Lee's heart went crazy in his chest as Sasuke's hands cupped his and brought the treat closer.

Sasuke took a bite from Lee's hands. "It's good," he told Lee, who thought that the room was unusually hot. He tugged and Lee, without really noticing, sank into his lap. Sasuke continued to eat from his hands, tongue flicking out to drag bits of the treat to his lips.

One bite left, he paused. "Would you like the last bite?"

Lee blinked slowly, having been captivated the entire time.

Spending time with Sasuke felt incredibly different once he had realized he was in love. Suddenly, everything was new and provocative and endearing.

It was like he had undergone a complete personality change. How would Sasuke react to that? Lee no longer making snide comments at him, no longer fending him off, no longer angry enough to hold a proper glaring contest, all of these changes happening seemingly overnight.

"Yes," he answered without really knowing the question. All he knew was that Sasuke smirked, obviously very pleased with his answer, before he took the last bite in his mouth.

And then he kissed Lee.

It was familiar, because Sasuke always kissed Lee.

And then it was extraordinary unfamiliar, because Lee never kissed back. He dropped the package the treat had come in and wrapped his arms slowly, unsurely around Sasuke's shoulders. He wanted to see what it was like to hold the man.

He'd never done that before either.

Sasuke fairly purred with glee as Lee reacted to him and nipped his bottom lip. Lee willingly opened up to him, curious about this, about how the sensations he had always gotten from kissing Sasuke seemed to increase tenfold.

Something sweet and tropical slid into Lee's mouth, melting on his tongue, and he realized it was the tablet cocoye. Sasuke followed it in with his own tongue and they toyed with the treat and each other till the need to breathe was overwhelming.

Lee pulled away and chewed what was left of the treat slowly, more enthralled by Sasuke's heated eyes than anything else.

"Lee…"

"I love you," Lee declared.

Sasuke had ignored him with such a coldhearted determination when Lee had last mentioned love between them. He wasn't sure what to expect now.

Sasuke's lips settled over his and that was decidedly the last thing Lee _had_ been expecting. He gave a startled sound and Sasuke slipped back into his mouth, growling appreciatively as he stood up.

Lee's legs instinctively wrapped around Sasuke's waist – and he felt a flash of irritation at the fact that Sasuke managed to carry him as if he weighed nothing and that he was being carried _at all_ – as Sasuke moved towards the bed.

"You should love me," Sasuke growled. He brought one hand between their bodies and tugged at Lee's pants, pulling them down his hips. "Do you submit?"

Lee used his abdominal muscles and legs to push Sasuke off of him before he swung over and into Sasuke's lap, conquering him proudly. He looked down at the man, broad and imposing, beneath him, and offered a smirk worthy of Sasuke's praise. "_Daelo ni!_"

He held onto Sasuke's shoulders as he dipped low and stole Sasuke's mouth with his own, forcing his way into Sasuke's mouth like he had done with Lee before. Sasuke was hot, spicy, with just a hint of something sweet – the tablet cocoye.

He stifled a gasp as Sasuke grabbed his hips and forcibly ground them together. Shivers raced up and down his spine and he tangled one hand in Sasuke's raven-wing black hair. Sasuke tilted his head just a bit and his mouth slid away, tongue tracing the line of Lee's jaw down his throat to his collarbone, savoring it slowly as he suckled and nibbled and nipped.

Lee groaned low in his throat and closed his eyes for a dizzying moment.

In his homeland, such a thing never would have happened so soon after feelings were admit to. But this wasn't his homeland. This was the West, where beasts and men were the same thing, men and women wore as little clothing as they could without being completely bare, the weather was always warm and heavy, and mates were won by the blood of others.

It was savage and hot and shamelessly unapologetic.

Sasuke sat up, hands like claws on Lee's pants and the lightweight fabric tore pitifully in his grip. Lee made a small noise of indignation before he completely forgot about it, Sasuke's mouth on his nipple, and he found that he was much happier without the pants on as Sasuke's hand rubbed his member.

He should have been embarrassed. He should have been mortified. Sasuke was the most experience Lee had ever had when it came to making love and he was already being blown away by the things Sasuke was doing.

The thought was banished as Sasuke groped his bottom with his free hand and bucked his erection between his cheeks, Sasuke's thin pyjama bottoms being their only barrier. The friction was delicious and Lee's lungs caught on fire and his belly tightened with unfamiliar tension as he threw his head back and cried out.

Sasuke snarled with animalistic hunger and twisted Lee onto his belly in the nest. In a moment, he was behind Lee, rubbing against him, rutting with no proper finesse, and Lee was reminded with aching clarity of their first night.

It was so much different now. Lee wanted this. A part of him, horrified by his wanton behavior, tried to scream for them to slow down, always that last modest, polite sliver of himself. But then his body was burning and he was mindless with shocking sensations and his heart was rampant and his chest was too tight.

And he loved it. He wriggled to his knees and tried to crawl forward, away from Sasuke, simply because he wanted control of the situation back in his hands. Somehow, he wanted the man at his mercy.

It had been oh-so beautiful, Sasuke beneath him, wintery black eyes flickering with lustful flames, flashing with lightning bolts of awareness and affectionate warmth.

Sasuke dragged him back and, this time, his pants were gone. Lee let loose a sound he had never thought himself capable of, something like gibberish and a whimper and a scream all in one.

Sasuke groaned into his ear. "_Hafé ki sonson dean nueko._"

He had no clue what Sasuke had just said, but it sounded demanding and husky and Lee wanted to obey if only he knew what Sasuke wanted. Then Sasuke thrust against him, hand rubbing his hardened length, slipping from between his cheeks to push between his thighs, and Lee made the same sound again. Sasuke groaned appreciatively.

Sasuke pushed down on his hips, flattening him to the nest, and spread his cheeks once more. Lee froze.

Was Sasuke going to…? Would it hurt? Did Lee care if it would?

Then Sasuke dipped his head and Lee watched over his shoulder as the man nipped and licked along his lower back, fondling his bottom with his tongue, and then –

He squealed in surprise and euphoria. That was incredible! And very, very embarrassing.

Sasuke pushed his tongue past the tight ring of muscles that held fast his virginity. Lee shivered and groaned, startled and amazed by the sensations he was experiencing.

Then Sasuke forced his way deeper and Lee's eyes fluttered shut.

His body was molten silk by the time Sasuke added a finger, and then two, and then three, and then four. The burn of conquest made Lee hiss and fist his hands in the blankets and pillows. Lee had seen Sasuke fully erect before, Sasuke had never tried to hide his arousal, and he knew he needed every advantage he could get.

He had heard the rumors of Sasuke's mates limping away, or crawling, and he knew that such stories were far from exaggerated.

"I want to be able to walk in the morning," he said breathlessly, unsure if he was teasing or being serious.

"_Nopa gen prométe._" Sasuke stretched out across his back, broad enough that he all but hid Lee from sight beneath him. Lee could feel Sasuke's heart thundering against his rib cage, could feel the head of Sasuke's arousal nudging against his entrance, could feel Sasuke's ragged breathing against the back of his neck, feel teeth clamp down there, could feel Sasuke entwine their hands together just as he slid forward…

Lee had never realized that he was only half of a person before that moment. That he had walked around, only half of a body, half a set of lungs, half a heart, half a voice, half a mind, half a motion, half a life. Filled to the brim, as if he was about to tear down the middle, it was as if he had never been empty, as if the very thought of ever being without this second body, Sasuke's inferno of a being, was unrealistic.

He could never be alone after this again. This pain, this pleasure, this unity, Sasuke's low, husky sounds of gratification, their hands together, their bodies slotted together like a lock and key, it was everything Lee hadn't realized he had waited to have.

He sighed, a long, humming noise of bliss. "Thank you, Gaia."

Sasuke gave a small, testing thrust and Lee cried out as whips of fire scorched him, scorching and just somewhat pleasant. "Let's not get Gaia involved, shall we?" Sasuke growled into the back of his neck. He tugged playfully on Lee's braid, then wrapped it around his wrist and pulled Lee's head up.

Their mouths met awkwardly over his shoulder, Sasuke biting into his bottom lip, and Lee squealed as Sasuke thrust into him again.

"I want to face you," Lee whispered. "Please, let me face you…"

Sasuke pulled out, eliciting a wail from Lee, before flipping him onto his back. Then he slid right back in and Lee shook from the tips of his toes to the tips of his fingers. His lips quivered and Sasuke greedily swallowed his cry, swallowed his soul, his essence, took his everything and replaced it all with lava and desire and mindless need.

His arms came around Sasuke's shoulders and he held on for what was left of him, all that was left and none of it belonging to him but to Sasuke.

Then the man pulled back and his wintery black eyes mirrored Lee's. There was the slightest, warm tilt of his lips as he moved, pulling back, pushing forward, the world breaking down and disappearing till it was only them left in the universe and Lee wouldn't, couldn't, didn't think it possible to, look away.

Lee brought their mouths together, and thought that a thousand kisses with this man would be far too few to have as darts of pleasure interlaced with his bliss and his body fell into ecstasy.

There was another being inside of him, moving, stretching him, and then a hard stroke pressed into something that made him wail and jolt. Sasuke groaned as he tightened around him and he purposely aimed his hips to keep hitting that spot. His head dropped and Lee felt his teeth bite down on his throat, breaking skin, and blood flowed as hotly over his skin as it was under it.

"_Aisara shighae,_" Lee whimpered into Sasuke's ear. His nails left deep, bloody marks in his lover's back. "I love you."

~""~

Lee was, at first, aware of warmth. It surrounded him, smothered him, encaged him. Bands of heat were secured tightly around his waist and a mountain of lava bore down on him.

Then he was aware of his own body. His lower back had developed its own agonized pulse, his legs were numb, and he was conscious of bites and claw marks that stung whenever a bead of sweat touched them, or whenever the sheets of lava brushed them. His eyelids were heavy, his arms cast out in front of him, and his braid had come undone, leaving a tangled, sweaty mess for him to brush out if he ever got the energy to.

And then he was aware of Sasuke, pressed flush to his back. It was his arms that were the bands of heat around his waist, and, in fact, every bite and claw mark on Lee's body was his fault. The man's limp length was pressed uncomfortably close to his bottom, eliciting no sense of pleasure but only anguish as his newly abused body demanded rest and healing. No work he had ever done before could meet the aches he felt in that moment, pains in places he hadn't known could get hurt so badly, and it was all thanks to the man he loved, his lover, his mate, Sasuke.

Sasuke's face was pressed between his shoulder blades, hiding beneath the sheets of lava which, Lee acknowledged, were in fact blankets. Sasuke had one leg cast over both of his and his small, quite breaths were too hot against Lee's too-sensitive skin.

Lastly, he was aware of what had woken him up. It was neither his own pain nor the heat, but, instead, someone knocking rhythmically, professionally, at the door. It was barely loud enough to overcome the constant crash of the waterfall and yet repetitive enough to draw his groggy attention.

There was a pause, then three evenly spaced out knocks. Another pause, then the person began again.

Lee shuffled beneath the blankets, very much aware that he wanted cool air but was in far too much pain to strive for it and far too heavy to try and work his way through it. "Sasuke," he murmured tiredly. "There's someone here."

Sasuke's tongue flickered out, tracing his spine. "They'll go away eventually."

They never did. Lee laid for there for long moments as the knock came over and over again.

"Sasuke, if you don't answer that, I will have to." He was about to point out how much discomfort that would cause him, but then Sasuke was bearing down on him, pushing him back into the pillows and blankets.

"I'll get it," Sasuke growled and stood to his feet, naked as the day he was born.

Undoubtedly, Sasuke already knew how much pain Lee was in. Lee wasn't his first mate.

If Lee was lucky, though, and Sasuke was true, then he would be Sasuke's last mate. He hugged a pillow to his chest and smiled.

And then he grasped that Sasuke was answering the door without pants on. "Sasuke, don't –"

The door swung open and Sasuke leaned casually against the door jamb. "Temari of the Sabaku Clan, daughter of the GoldMaker, and Princess of the Sand," Sasuke lazily greeted. "What are you doing here?"

Lee couldn't see the person, as Sasuke easily blocked the door, meaning also that the person could not see in. But, when she spoke, he knew he didn't have to see her to remember her.

_It was one of his capturers_. The woman that had taunted him at the Ring! His fingers turned to claws in the pillows.

"My sibling, Gaara of the Sabaku Clan, son of the GoldMaker, and Heir of the Sand, demands a fight!" Her voice was familiarly snooty, stoking the roaring rage that Lee had pushed aside with time. He tried to force himself up, but the pain that raced up his spine, that burned and crackled and snapped in his lower back, that numbed his legs, made it impossibly for him to stand. "The victor gets your plaything."

Lee froze. Gaia, no. Not another fight. Over _him_? Who was this Gaara, to want to fight Sasuke for him?

"Denied," Sasuke answered simply, almost in a bored drawl.

"… What?" The woman, Temari, was obviously shocked. "So you forfeit?"

"No. I fought my fight and there's no law that states that I have to fight again."

"So he's not worth a second fight? I told Gaara that he was a dull thing."

He didn't see it, but he felt Sasuke's savage glare. "He's worth more than fighting against a man who sends his sister to me instead of coming himself. If he wants a fight, tell him that he must request one from me himself."

"Don't be so cruel to me! Do you know what he will do to me if I go back and tell him that I couldn't get him a definite answer?"

"Do you want a no? Goodbye, Temari of the Sabaku Clan. Send your brother whenever he's ready to face me."

And he slammed the door shut in her face.

Something viciously pleased and cruel giggled insanely in the pit of Lee's soul. Then he felt pity for the fear that had been in her voice.

But why would she fear her own brother? He frowned as he tried to think of an answer.

Sasuke crawled back into the nest, pushing the blankets off of Lee, much to his relief, only to take their place. Lee, flat on his belly, was subjected to Sasuke laying down right on top of him. The pressure against his wounded backside was both unpleasant and yet soothing.

"You're heavy," he grumbled.

"You're comfortable," Sasuke shot back.

They laid in companionable silence.

"Who is Gaara?" Lee asked finally.

"A boy."

"A boy?"

"A boy who never learned to grow up." He felt Sasuke frown against his shoulder. "A boy, trapped in a man's body, that wants everything he never had as a child."

"He sounds sad."

"He is. Sad and murderous. Every mate he wins, he bloodies them. He thinks that people are most beautiful when spattered with their own blood."

"That is…" He tried to find the proper word for it.

"Disturbing?"

"Well, yes."

Suddenly, Sasuke smirked. "Aren't you glad that you're mine?"

Lee hummed thoughtfully, throwing a playful look over his shoulder. "I don't know… You haven't given me a good reason to feel glad yet."

"Oh? Then what was last night?"

"A pain in my bottom. I don't think I can move my legs."

"Good. That means you can't walk away."

"I had no plans to," Lee told him haughtily.

"Yes… Stuck in this bed, mine to molest."

"Oh, no! No more molesting! You are never touching me again, not if this is how I will end up in the morning."

"You weren't complaining last night." Sasuke grinned wickedly at Lee's flush.

"Of course not. I wasn't in so much pain last night."

Sasuke's hand combed through his hair, gently untangling snarls and straightening out each inky tress. Lee closed his eyes and merely felt Sasuke's affection for him. It was subtle, woven into the motions of his fingers, but Lee felt it.

It didn't occur to him to be worried about the fight between Sasuke and Gaara. He had learned to have faith in Sasuke's fighting ability, had seen the damage Sasuke could do, and had felt Sasuke's strength. If Gaara was stronger than Sasuke, then…

Well, Lee wasn't sure what then. But he doubted it. Now that he knew he loved Sasuke, he wasn't going to lose him. If he had to step into the Ring himself and fight with his mate, he would.

No one would take him away from the happiness he had found. Especially a man who had others speak for him.

~""~

_Translations:_

"_Daelo ni!_" – "Never!" – Language of the East

"_Hafé ki sonson dean nueko._" – "Make that sound again." – Language of the West

"_Nopa gen prométe._" – "No promises." - Language of the West

"_Ou tonavé ciefou,_" – "You blind fool," – Language of the West

"_Temwe amen demou tou._" – "I love you too." – Language of the West

"_Aisara shighae._" – "I love you." – Language of the East


	5. Part 5

Lee was on the prowl.

Or, if he was willing to admit it to himself, he was hiding. But Lee never hid, not from any sort of danger, and the risk to his health that was Sasuke of the Uchiha Clan most _definitely_ did not warrant the retreat of the brave and strong Lee.

However, if one were to call him on it, he would tell them, in all shrill tones, that he had _just_ gotten back the ability to walk after two days of bed rest and that did _not_ mean that he was ready for his mate again. Even with Sasuke gently and patiently stretching him every morning and night.

But, maybe, he would keep that last part to himself with a very rosy blush and shifty eyes.

He had never thought it possible to need to murder a loved one before. Then again, this was Sasuke. He should have known it would come down to this, where Lee's wellbeing all depended on whether or not Sasuke survived one more minute.

There was a fair amount of distance between him and Sasuke for the moment. After nearly two hours of chase, someone might think that any sane person would just realize that their lover wasn't up to coitus and back off.

But this was Sasuke. Sasuke thought this was all a very arousing game. Lee knew this because there had been one too many times when Sasuke had nearly caught him and Sasuke had been aware of it. He had very sweetly, very huskily, talked about such dirty things that Lee would have exploded if he hadn't been so desperate to stay hidden.

Some time ago, it occurred to Lee to go to Naruto and his _imou-saeng's_ private quarters. In the home of his _imou-saeng_ and brother in arms, would Sasuke still molest him?

Most likely.

He swiftly, and with great finality, decided against going to their rooms.

He rounded a right corner with the speed of a hare, running away from the big bad wolf, and crashed right into a solid wall of muscle and searing hot flesh.

He rebounded and hit his back hard as he fell. "_Chikujen!_" He rubbed his now throbbing bottom.

Then he looked up into the face of pure stoicism.

"Hello…" Lee greeted weakly, then, stronger, with a smile, "I am very sorry for running into you just now." He hopped to his feet, ignoring the fact that the man hadn't even seemed to have been nudged by Lee.

The man was wearing a red tasseled scarf and a pair of burgundy pyjama bottoms. He had the darkest red hair Lee had ever seen, incredibly pale skin, and pale blue-green eyes set into darkened rings of what appeared to be many sleepless nights. Or was it makeup? He was shorter than Lee, but broader.

He gave the man a cautious glimpse. He wasn't talking. He wasn't expressing any emotion. He was just… staring.

He pulled his braid over one shoulder, just for something to do to combat the man's stillness. He almost wondered if the man was even real or if Lee had just run into a very well done statue.

Then the man shifted and Lee startled, surprised by the suddenness of motion by something so perfect _motionless_.

"What's your name?" The man's Earth Language was decent, deep and husky as if the man rarely spoke.

"My name is Lee! May I ask what yours is?"

The man took a step forward. "Are you untouched?"

Lee mentally reeled back, not sure how to take that question from a complete stranger. "W-what?"

"Has he touched you yet? Has he been inside of you? He ruins all of the best toys with his cock. My big sister wants him because of it." He spoke with a dull, apathetic tone of voice, as if describing a gray morning. "I want you."

Ice water trickled through Lee's insides.

Whoever this man was, Lee did not want him.

But Lee stood his ground and put on his bravest mask. If fists came to fists, Lee would hit the hardest. "I'm sorry, but I don't know what you're talking about."

"Sasuke of the Uchiha Clan," answered the redhead. "Has he touched you? Fucked you? His playthings never walk the same way again."

"I'm not his _plaything_. I am his mate and he is mine."

The redhead considered him, eyes drifting over his entire body as if Lee was nothing but a display, as if Lee wasn't real, wasn't flesh and blood, as if all he really was just a plaything. A toy to be used and cast aside and the redhead looked to wonder as if trying to figure out if Lee was secondhand or not.

The redhead grabbed him by his throat, lifted him into the air, and then slammed him against a wall without a single word.

Lee wheezed, disorientated and caught off guard. The man had more strength in him than Lee had originally foreseen!

The redhead studied him with blank eyes. It was like he expected Lee to suddenly admit to speaking an untruth against him. "Are you afraid of me, Lee?"

"No," he growled in a breathless voice, "but I am getting very angry and I would like for you to let me go."

Blue-green eyes pierced him, not at all in the arousing way Sasuke's did. "You're lying."

And then, just like that, he threw Lee down the corridor. He skidded on the glossy granite floor, giving birth to new aches along his left side.

The redhead followed after him at a sedated pace. "If you're going to be mine, you're going to have to be honest with me."

"I have been!" Lee snarled. He rolled onto his hands and flipped back to his feet, driving the heel of his foot into the man's chin.

The redhead stumbled back, looking, for all the world, as if Lee had just accused him of raping Gaia. Lee doubted anyone had struck back against the redhead. That, or no foreigners had done so.

"Whoever you are, you are being a bully!"

"A bully?" the redhead repeated lowly. "You think I'm being mean?"

Lee had the bruises to prove it.

"You're being dishonest."

"I am not!" Lee cried.

The man's eyes flashed golden. A fraction of a second later, Lee was pummeled back into a wall, feeling as if boulder had just crashed into his abdomen. He coughed weakly as the redhead took a step back, letting him fall to the ground. Red speckles dotted the floor and the back of his hand.

Furious, in pain, and finding that he was not liking his first impression of this man, Lee swung his weight onto one arm and then threw his legs out, sweeping the redhead's legs out from under him. Then, with painful precision, he raised his foot to bring his heel down on the man's sternum.

A hand grabbed his ankle instead and jerked. Lee was rolled onto his belly before a knee pressed between his shoulder blades. His arm was wrenched back and pulled behind his back, held high with a very firm grip that twisted his shoulder.

"You're infuriating," the redhead said dully. "I don't like you."

"You're not quite the charmer either," Lee snapped breathlessly.

There was a pause.

"I'm going to enjoy breaking you."

Now, there, _there_, had been emotion. Excitement. Childish glee. Lee could almost see the man's sharp, delighted grin and blown-wide eyes even without looking at him.

He swallowed thickly and told his heart to calm down. Maybe he was a little afraid now, but he wasn't going to admit it. He wasn't going to let the man see it. He wasn't sure what the man would do.

"I will not be broken," he stated arrogantly instead. "Especially by the likes of _you_."

Suddenly, something Sasuke had said a few days ago came back to him.

"_A boy who never learned to grow up." He felt Sasuke frown against his shoulder. "A boy, trapped in a man's body, that wants everything he never had as a child."_

"Is your name Gaara?" Lee asked.

"So you've heard of me?"

Gaia, this was bad.

"Yes, my mate, _Sasuke_, warned me about you," he decided to admit. "He was rather put down that you never approached him for a fight yourself."

It went against his free spirit and warrior code, but… Lee might have to stall. Sasuke had been behind him by some distance, but, if Lee waited long enough, he might catch up in time to help Lee.

There was something inhuman about this Gaara's strength, and that golden flash in his eyes, and the position he had Lee in was not giving Lee any illusions of victory without aide.

"This is an approach," Gaara said evenly. "It's a direct approach." He forced his other leg between Lee's thighs. "Sasuke should try and save you."

"He's being a little slow today," Lee answered, trying to show no reaction to the invasion. It took everything in him to keep up an act of bravado.

"I see." Gaara's knee started rubbing against him.

Lee stopped breathing. To his utmost disgust, he felt the beginnings of arousal pool in his gut.

Snarling, he tried to buck Gaara off of him, tried to push forward so that he could loosen the grip Gaara had on his arm and hope for escape. The redhead remained seated on top of him, and, for all of Lee's troubles, he grabbed Lee's braid and wound it around his free hand and wrist. He pulled back sharply and Lee arched off of the floor.

He stifled a yelp as his arm cracked ominously. It was going to break if Gaara didn't let off on the pressure.

Gaara leaned forward and his tongue traced over Lee's cheek, the arch of his brow, the shell of his ear. He nibbled on the corner of Lee's lips. "I'm hard," Gaara admitted blatantly. "I'm going to fuck you."

Lee hadn't felt this helpless since the first night he had met Sasuke.

He could see Gaara pushing his pyjama bottoms down out of the corner of his eye. The redhead's erection stood out proudly from his belly, jutting towards Lee, and he felt his stomach drop. Then Gaara grabbed the waistband of Lee's bottoms and pulled them down as well, just beneath the globes of his bottom.

He renewed his struggles, no broken arm or broken arm be damned as he tried to throw the redhead off of him.

"I like your body," Gaara commented airily.

"Don't do this!"

"It's very flexible."

"_Okugeob!_"

Gaara played his braid along his erection. "What did you just say?"

But Lee was too sickened to answer. His bond to his _imou-saeng_… Their promise to grow their hair together, he had thought only two things could disgrace it: death or being disowned. Bile rose into his mouth as Gaara wrapped it around his arousal and masturbated with it. The defilement crept into his very soul, cold and filthy.

Milky white tears ran down Lee's cheeks. Somehow, he knew it would have hurt less if Gaara had merely violated his body instead of this.

He sobbed without meaning to let the sound out of his mouth.

Gaara gave his hair a particularly hard thrust that pulled at his scalp. "What did you say?"

With a fierce battle cry, he swung himself over onto his side. His arm popped and his other hand came out, a solid fist running right into Gaara's startled expression. Without waiting a second, he grabbed Gaara by his scarf and cracked their heads together.

Black spots danced in front of his eyes. When his vision cleared, his knee was snapping into Gaara's sternum, and the redhead fell back with a wheeze.

Before he could land another blow, Gaara kicked out and landed a solid hit on his upper thigh. Then, wrapping his legs around Lee's waist, he scissored his legs and threw Lee down on his back once more. Lee snapped his elbow into Gaara's cheek and heard something crack.

There was hateful fury in Gaara's eyes when he stared down at Lee, blood seeping out of the seam of his lips.

Lee didn't feel so sorry for him anymore.

Gaara wrapped both hands around his throat and squeezed. Lee sucked in one last breath and tried to pry Gaara's hands off of him. He pushed down on Gaara's elbows, wildly threw punches at his face, trying to break his nose, and tried to buck Gaara off of him. All he succeeded in was losing his remaining air that much faster and his oxygen-starved body screamed at him as shadows danced before his eyes, pretty and expanding.

He tried to grab onto Gaara's hands and twist them away from his throat, but his limbs felt heavy and uncoordinated and he ended up patting Gaara's forearms instead.

If he lived through this, he swore he was going to not be so good at hiding away from Sasuke.

The man's eyes flashed golden again. Swirling blue marks began appearing all over his skin and, when he smirked, as if delighted by Lee's helplessness, all of his visible teeth had bloodied, sharpened points.

The blonde, Temari, had once said that Lee was in the Land of the Beasts.

Lee's hands flopped down to his sides. All he could hear was himself struggling to breathe.

It seemed that, for whatever reason, the beasts always came for him.

At the very edge of consciousness, Lee heard a dull roar in the pit of his ears, possibly his blood gushing. It could have been his mind buzzing.

But then he could breathe and he did so greedily, rolling onto his side as he alternated between coughing and sucking in deep, hungry gulps of air. His vision cleared slowly and, distantly, he could hear rock breaking. There was another roar, this one from without, and then a sickening crack.

Lee forced himself onto his other side, towards the ruckus, and stared in wonder.

That was Sasuke. Sasuke with gray skin and long, pale purple hair and blue lips and a four-point star design on the bridge of his nose. Fangs peaked over his bottom lip and his fingers ended in claws. He didn't have wings this time, though. But Lee could see ridges along his back where the scaly appendages were most likely waiting readily to snap out.

And that was Gaara. His skin had turned golden brown, like sand, and his body was fatter, sloppier, red hair falling away as pointed ears perked on top of his head. His eyes fell into deep grooves and his mouth sloped slightly out into a short muzzle full of razor-sharp teeth.

Gaara snarled and hissed and snapped his teeth inches from Sasuke's face, but the hand Sasuke had at Gaara's thick, short throat kept him in place against the wall, claws just barely puncturing Gaara's hardened skin.

Sasuke was the epitome of untouchable with his 'you-can't-harm-me' look as Gaara's claws raked down his chest and arms, swatting at his face and eliciting no reaction. Sasuke's face was narrowed in disdain, yet nothing as strong as rage or even as weak as pity.

It was as if Gaara meant nothing to him, and Gaara reacted violently to it.

Gaara needed a reaction from the man he had so openly done something wrong by, Lee realized. Again, he remembered Sasuke calling Gaara a child. This was that child begging for attention, just like a young one would kick and scream and throw their toys across the room.

"_Erou cotan un gason,_ Gaara of the Sabaku Clan," Sasuke spoke softly, without inflection. Yet his words were obviously scathing as Gaara snarled viciously at him, insult registered in his monstrous eyes. "You want the things you can't have."

Gaara slashed his claws at Sasuke's throat, only for him to take a calm step backward. When Gaara moved to follow, Sasuke planted his foot in the wall behind the other man, knee bent and thigh towards him, and then bent Gaara over his leg, one arm over the other beast's throat and the other leg crossed over Gaara's calves.

Gaara's head hit the wall a moment before there was a sickening crack. And then, Gaara _screamed_. It was a blood-curdling, bone-chilling cry of agony before Sasuke stepped away and Gaara fell to the ground, flopping and jerking helplessly.

Sasuke had just broken his spine. Gaara's spine was _broken_.

The beast faded away, leaving behind a pale man with red hair and his handsome face soured by anguish. Blue-green eyes snapped to Lee and they burned with pure hatred.

It was obvious that he blamed Lee for this. That it wasn't his own fault for approaching him and fighting him, knowing who he was mates with. It wasn't Sasuke's fault for doing it, either. No, it was Lee's fault, somehow.

Sasuke's beastly features did not recede with Gaara's. For a moment, Lee thought Sasuke was going to finish Gaara off, end his life and pain. Lee hoped Gaara a better life, if Gaia chose to reincarnate him. He hoped Gaara to be a better person.

And then he looked away because that blind, all encompassing loathing made his stomach roll unpleasantly. And a part of him secretly hoped that Gaara burned in the heart of Gaia for what he had done to his bond with his _imou-saeng_.

_It's just hair_, he tried to reassure himself.

_It's more than just that_, he reminded himself. And his soul twisted and screamed.

Sasuke turned towards him, golden eyes lit on fire, and approached. Try as he might, Lee couldn't stop from shaking.

"S-Sasuke…" He stopped, determined to get rid of that tremor in his voice before he spoke again. "I'm alright. I…" Hurt. Everywhere. He pushed a hand against his shoulder and felt it pop back into place with a wince. He felt ashamed and weak and thoroughly beaten and disgraced.

Sasuke sank down to crouch beside him. He grabbed Lee's face between his clawed hands and drew him close, pressing a dangerous, possessive kiss to his lips. Sasuke's fangs slid over the fragile flesh of his mouth without making him bleed, but Lee felt each touch as a thrill to his heart.

Then Sasuke pushed him flat on his back and loomed over him.

Wait.

Wait…

Lee's eyes widened as Sasuke undid the sash that rested on his hips, then pushed down the band of his pyjama bottoms low enough so that his erection could break free. He growled in warning with Lee wriggled and tried to push him away.

This wasn't about comfort. This was about _claiming_. Lee's eyes jerked wearily towards Gaara. He had stopped flopping, was completely still, but his eyes were open and aware and focused on them, his expression grim and petulantly furious.

Lee was not Lee right now. Lee was territory – Sasuke's territory – and Gaara had dared to intrude upon him. Sasuke was asserting his dominance much like an animal.

Lee looked up into golden eyes, trying to find anything of his mate in them. He saw anger, possessiveness, territorial instinct, cold determination. Where was the arousal? The affection? The warmth, the smirk?

But then Sasuke looked back at him, instead of just staring at him, and the heat and warmth that Lee was looking for bled through in threads of black and red in yellow eyes. Sasuke put four fingers in his mouth and bit them, scarlet flowing over them, before he brought them between their bodies.

It was a slick lubricant. One finger slid into him with little problem. Two fingers invaded. Three was met with discomfort. The fourth was met with soreness.

Lee wrapped his arms around Sasuke's shoulders and pressed his face into his hair so that he wouldn't have to see Gaara. Points on his body continued to throb in pain, and his throat was incredibly tender. His legs came up and around Sasuke's waist as his mate's claws directed him to.

And then Sasuke slid into him, firmly, painfully, safely one body again, and the defilement of his bond was, for a moment, overridden by the joining with his mate.

Gaara snarled in the background and Lee tuned him out, focusing only on the full feeling of Sasuke inside of him, the strength and warmth of Saskue's arms around him, the sound of Sasuke's grunts and pants against his ear, the heat that rolled off of Sasuke if as if he were the sun. His thrusts were hard and the slap of skin against skin was lewd. Sasuke wasn't watching him, but the redhead, and he began speaking the Western language. Gaara roared in abject rage and shivers racketed Lee's body as he pushed closer to his mate, pushed back against him, pulled him closer.

Milky white tears flowed down his cheeks as the pleasure coiled in his belly, and Sasuke bellowed in his ear, an answer to Gaara's rage. His mate brought his mouth down on the junction between his shoulder and neck and bit through his skin, red spurting, so much blood everywhere, inside and out…

This wasn't right.

But it wasn't wrong either.

~""~

Several things happened because of Gaara and what he had done.

The first thing was that he and his _imou-saeng_ had cried for many hours and then had spent days, countless galleons of water, washing his hair. The fact that someone had been able to soil their bond so easily, without knowing its significance, had rocked their world. Even when his locks had lost its healthy sheen, washing away all the natural oils his scalp produced, they still would not stop. Always would remain the memory of Gaara's manhood raping their bond.

Not that Naruto and Sasuke had been able to understand. They had been more worried about the state of Lee's body, the bruises, the broken bones. They had tried to explain it to them, the bond, how it was a manifestation of their sibling souls. Still, Naruto and Sasuke, not familiar with their Eastern customs, thought them to be overreacting.

The second thing had been the disappearance of Gaara and his siblings from the Sabaku Clan. There were rumors of where they had gone, but the family had always been tight-lipped and so nothing was definite. Some said they went to the South. Others said they moved to the North. A few whispered that they went to the East where they would take their revenge on those like Lee, seeing as how they couldn't get to Lee themselves.

The third was something Lee should have done a very long time ago – he threw himself into studying the Western Language. It was a distraction, though it came with its benefits. He needed to focus on something, anything that would mute the sickness inside of him.

The fourth was that Sasuke became overly protective and sexually insatiable. If he wasn't touching Lee, wasn't holding him, wasn't inside of him, wasn't merged with him, he got irritable. He became paranoid and glared at anyone who dared come close, even Naruto.

The fifth was that Lee started bleeding.

Sasuke had first noticed when he had had Lee flat on his back, pressed into the blankets and pillows of their nest. Lee had shivered at the feeling of Sasuke's fingers sliding along cheek, tracing the trail left behind by a blood droplet. Then he had pressed his finger inside of him and that had felt strange against Lee's bloated abdomen.

At first, he had thought that the defilement had manifested itself in an actual illness, or that there was lingering internal damage from what Gaara had done to him. Maybe he had anal tearing. Sasuke had not been the gentlest, or most coddling, mate as of late.

Then Sasuke had smirked.

It all clicked into place. Though Lee had had a mother, he came from a long line of male carriers. His _apoto_ had been one, Lee had been told by his adopted _apoto_, and, once every three months, he had bled. His adopted _apoto_ had told him that his _okaa-ma_ would tease his _apoto_ for it, saying, "_Maybe you should carry our child, my bonded._"

Sasuke found a rag and pressed it between Lee's legs. He would only bleed a little over the next two or three days, but his adopted _apoto_ had warned him that the cramps and body aches would be crippling. His body was changing, adapting to carry a child.

His adopted _apoto_ had always said that, one day, he would make an excellent _Opa_.

The first words out of his mouth after their discovery was, "I want a child – but not right now."

Sasuke raised a brow at him. "Why not right now?"

"_We_ are in no state to be having children right now," he told Sasuke authoritatively, though his voice was weak. "You can not trust your best friend to stay in a room alone with me and I – I'm not much better off."

"I think right now is the best time," Sasuke countered. "You wouldn't be able to fight my claim to keep you in bed all day, every day, away from everyone else."

He didn't curl up and wither away under Lee's glare like he had hoped he would. "How protective you are already is getting on my nerves. I know that I have been through something traumatic, but I would like space to breathe, please!"

Sasuke leaned in closer, putting his full weight on Lee's upper body. "How's this?"

"You think you are so funny, _mi akouple_."

"Your Western is getting better."

"_Quíjwenn dekou encinan._"

"Get off of what?"

"Sasuke…" Lee paused, worried. "I do love you. My heart is yours, but… You're smothering me."

"I'm keeping you safe."

"I can't breathe."

"I haven't gotten off of you yet."

"I'm not okay," Lee admitted softly, making Sasuke look dour. "But I will not get better if you don't let me."

Sasuke sighed and nuzzled his face into Lee's neck. "_Erou yo mía._"

"That won't change. You're mine too." He smiled softly and stroked Sasuke's cheek. "Besides, you might want to leave me be till this is over with. It's not pretty or gentle."

"I want to see," Sasuke said stubbornly. "I'll take care of you and then we'll discuss boundaries."

"Boundaries?"

"Yes. I'll allow you some space as long as I get to choose how far away from me you go."

He looked so serious and dogged that Lee couldn't help but chuckle. "Alright then. You set your boundaries and I'll see what I can do to stay within them."

"You're not going to obey my wishes, are you?"

"More like, I'm not going to obey your demands."

Sasuke growled and nipped his throat. Then his collarbone. Then his nipple…

Lee hissed as he felt Sasuke's member press against his inner thigh. "We can't do that!"

"Lee," Sasuke purred, definitely amused, "there is so much I have yet to teach you. I think we should start with an oral demonstration."

Lee vividly remembered Sasuke about to wrap his mouth around his length after his first heavy dream. He gulped suddenly. "You are a sex fiend."

Sasuke licked the seam of his lips before slipping into his mouth. Lee moaned and wrapped his arms around his lover's shoulders. "And you are the one that gets to assuage all my needs," Sasuke groaned into his mouth.

"I might not survive this."

"I think you're strong enough to handle me."

"I'm glad one of us is sure."

"Stop trying to distract me." Sasuke bit his earlobe in punishment. "I'm going to molest you now."

"Gaia forbid if I try to stop you," Lee murmured, relaxing into Sasuke's wandering hands.

"It would be in your best interests not to try."

"I'm sure it is."

Then Sasuke slid his mouth down his body and finished something that had been unfinished for far too long.

Conversation very quickly dwindled into a hot and heavy silence.

~""~

_Translations:_

"_Chikujen!_" – "Damn it!" – Language of the East

"_Okugeob!_" – "Coward!" – Language of the East

_Erou cotan un gason_ – You're like a child – Language of the West

_Opa_– title for a male carrier; combination of mother and father – Language of the East

"_Quíjwenn dekou encinan._" – "Get off of -." – Language of the West

"_Erou yo mía._" – "You are mine." – Language of the West

_Author's Note:_ Lee, why are you so out of character?

Lybellulla, or KakaIru, pointed out something of confusion.

Why did Sasuke go from cold at the mention of love to welcoming Lee in when he admitted to loving Sasuke? Well, as it turned out, my readers can't read my mind like I sometimes think they can.

Sasuke was not angry about Lee mentioning love, but that he insinuated that, in reality, Sasuke couldn't love him, or, at least, feel affection towards him and, yes, it did hurt Sasuke's feelings that he went through so much to treat Lee differently from his other mates and Lee was too dense to read the signs for what they said.


	6. Part 6

The maze was a haven for them. No one ever came in aside from them and their mates, and their mates had backed off, giving them the space they desperately needed.

His _imou-saeng_ was staring into the pond. Plecos clung to the bottom, crawling along the tops of rock and mud, while goldfish of black moor, fantail, veiltail, and panda moor swam lazily above them. They swarmed in black and gold and yellow and red and calico.

"_Imou-saeng_?"

She looked up at him.

"I began bleeding."

At first, she looked horrified. Obviously, she was thinking what he had first believed, that it was another injury, but, then, as she noticed that he wasn't hurt or concerned, she relaxed and watched him curiously. When she understood, he could see the epiphany dawn in her white eyes.

"Are you and Sasuke going to have children?" she asked softly.

"Yes, but… not right now. When we're better."

She barely managed to hide her flinch and Lee ducked his head, suddenly ashamed.

Sasuke was still reeling from the fact that Gaara had gotten his hands on Lee.

Lee and his _imou-saeng_ were still reeling from the fact that Gaara got his cock in their bond.

"Lee, I…" She paused. Then, carefully, she pulled an object out from within her huipil. It glinted metallically, light filtering through the branches of the copey to strike it. Its gleam sparkled off of the water's surface. "I want us to start over."

Lee stared in absolute horror at the instrument his _imou-saeng_ held. Shears. _Hair_ shears.

"We can not re-grow our bodies if they become soiled," she spoke quietly. "But we can re-grow our hair and, if there is the slightest chance we can move on from this, I want to take it."

"_Imou-saeng_…"

"Come over here. I'll cut yours and then y-you'll cut mine." She looked visibly sickened. She was far too pale and her eyes were far too wide. Her hands shook and Lee wasn't sure if she would be steady enough to commit such a deed. "And then we'll renew our sibling bond."

It sounded so simple.

But it was going to hurt so much.

Lee trembled as he put his back to her. She picked at his braid as if it was diseased and, maybe, it was. He felt the cold pressure of the shears just above where Gaara's hand had grabbed him and wrapped him around his cock, and closed his eyes tightly. They had memorized where Gaara had defiled their bond. It was a muddy splotch on their souls, a physical chill that ran down both their spines whenever they came near it.

His heart stopped as he waited.

His breathing stopped as he waited.

He stopped existing as he waited.

He felt the first snip more than he heard it. He clenched his hands at his knees and bit back a cry of pain. Then, as if sensing his anguish, there was one long _sniiiipp_ and three things happened at the same moment.

One was that Lee fell forward into the pond, overwhelmed by the sensation of his soul tearing in half, numbed by the weight he had been carrying suddenly gone.

Two was that Naruto and Sasuke appeared in the heart of the maze, as if somehow magically summoned, and Sasuke immediately leaped after him, most likely taking countless goldfish lives with his daring rescue.

Three was that his _imou-saeng_ screamed. A long, loss-filled howl as she clutched her hands to her breast.

Milky white drops dripped from the blades of the shears.

"He has to finish it," he blearily heard his _imou-saeng_ sob. Then he felt the cold silver shears in his own hand. He opened his eyes, not remembering when he had shut them, and saw her back to him, her long hair fanning down her back. "He has to a-and then we have to r-renew our bond. You two have to l-leave. No one can h-hear our vows."

"Wait, so this is like our bonding ritual?" Naruto asked, and Lee swung his head to look at him. He was as pale as his _imou-saeng_, shaky even. "I thought it was a sibling thing between you two…"

"All bonding rituals are done the same way," she whispered. "For all siblings and lovers. It's the vows that tell them apart." She looked back at him. There was so much fear in her white eyes. It was almost unbearable. "Go ahead, _onii-saeng_. I-I'm ready."

Lee wasn't sure if he was. Now that he had experienced that pain, he wasn't sure if he could put his _imou-saeng_ through it, especially with the state she was in.

"_Onii-saeng_, I'm afraid. It hurts already, and I can't make the pain go away unless we redo our bond. Please, I want to, I want to get this over with as quickly as possible!"

It was rare when she raised her voice. Actually, it was unheard of. In his shock, he obeyed, happy that someone had thought to bind her hair back exactly where he needed to cut it. It would be one clean swipe and then they could renew their sibling vows and then recuperate.

He grabbed her hair in one shaking hand and held the shears poised around the base of it. He swallowed thickly. "_Gomian'nahae._" And he closed the blades and heard them cut through her hair and felt them slash into his soul and tasted the coppery tears that ran down his face.

No longer sweet.

Naruto opened his arms and caught Hinata as she fell forward, silently, without a sound. Sasuke was there when Lee wilted sideways.

"You…" He licked his lips tiredly. "You two have to go now."

Naruto opened his mouth, looking pissed off and afraid, one hand on Hinata's baby bump as if to assure himself that their child was still there.

Sasuke spoke first, though, and his voice was calm. "When will it be safe for us to come back?"

"A-an hour… It shouldn't take us longer than that." He tried to stand and ultimately failed, falling back against his lover.

As if sensing what he needed, Sasuke led him to lay down by his _imou-saeng_, facing her, as Naruto grudgingly followed.

She opened her eyes slowly. "_Onii…_"

He grasped her hand and squeezed gently. "I'm here."

"How do… people live through this?"

Hatred, he thought. They learned to hate each other so that their bond meant nothing even before they destroyed it.

In this case, love really did hurt. His love for his _imou-saeng_ and her love for him – without the bond's manifestation, it was as if that, no matter how tightly he held her, she simply wasn't there. There was a hollow place inside of his soul where she used to reside and it hurt as if someone had thrust their hand into his chest and pulled out his heart.

He looked meaningfully at Sasuke. His lover understood and grabbed Naruto.

The blonde resisted at first, looking afraid and unwilling to leave his bonded when she was so obviously in pain. Then she looked up at him.

"Please," she begged, and he couldn't refuse.

"Sasuke," Lee called weakly. "_Aisara shighae._"

Sasuke's eyes were warm, coddling his heart and wounded soul.

When they were gone and Lee could no longer hear them, he and his _imou-saeng_ clasped both their hands together, one on top of the other, with a strand of newly plucked hair from each of their heads cupped in their palms.

"_I claim you as my sister,_" Lee began in the Eastern Language.

"_I claim you as my brother,_" she mirrored.

"_I claim you as my family…_"

It was an hour later, not a moment later, but, possibly a moment sooner, that a blonde dashed into the heart of the maze.

His face was red from exertion, his eyes blown wide with fear and haunting daydreams, a cold sweat bathing his skin.

And what he encountered was the picture of serenity.

Naruto's fears melted away as his bonded laughed, a tinkling, bell-like sound, and pulled her hand free of the pond and the nibbling goldfish.

Lee sat at her side, chuckling as he gently swayed his feet back and forth in the water.

They both looked up at him, smiling, at peace. Hinata stood to her feet, grasping Lee's shoulder for aide, and came around the pond towards him.

"Naruto…"

He rushed her, gathering her up in his arms and swearing to himself that he would never let her go again. He had never understood what had been so precious about their hair – at times, how they had been 'overreacting' had even made him want to laugh insanely.

Here Lee was, bruised and broken and having about to be raped by one of Sasuke's rivals, and they were worried about his _hair_?

He got it now, though. Or, at least he was fucking terrified of it. Did it matter if there was a difference?

"So everything's better now?" he asked, almost frantically.

"Yes," she answered. Then frowned. "Well, no. It's like a scar now; it happened and it hurt, but we've healed."

"That's good. Scars are okay." He'd say anything right about now. Anything just to keep his mind off the image of her falling forward into his arms, not breathing, no heartbeat, for a moment, dead to the world.

"Now we can focus on Lee and what happened instead of what it did to us," she went on peacefully.

Naruto ran his hands through her hair, now as long as her shoulders. He was kind of scared to touch it, knowing what could happen if it was defiled or dirtied or… anything.

Suddenly, that day he had made love to her here, in the heart of the maze, with dirt and sand clinging to her hair wasn't so sexy anymore. Had _that_ damaged their sibling bond? Had that caused them any trauma?

"_Imou-saeng_, I think your bonded is having a panic attack," came Lee's voice somewhere in the background. It sounded concerned.

Then a kiss brought him back to reality. Hinata's warm, silken lips fit against his as if they had been made to kiss each other. Her arms wrapped around his shoulders and she pressed into him. The relief he felt at the fact that their baby pushed between them almost made him fall to his knees.

She pulled away by just a breath and looked him in the eye. "Let's go home," she said softly.

"Yeah. Home. That's, uh, a good idea. Home…" Where he could make love to her and assure himself that she was okay. Where he could lock the door and close the windows and hold her tight and never have to leave.

Yeah, that sounded good.

"You should let me carry you," he blurted out when she went to take a step back and walk away.

She looked up at him, seeing through him with those unique, doe-like white eyes. He felt humbled just to know that this beautiful creature loved him, and he almost bowed his head when her warm, adoring gaze searched him.

"Okay. You can carry me."

He shuddered and kissed her thankfully. Then he was just kissing her, her forehead, her cheeks, her eyelids, her nose, her jaw, her chin – worshiping her.

She giggled. "You're not carrying me, Naruto."

"Right." He swung her up into his arms, careful not to tug on her hair.

They were going to have to discuss that – what they could and couldn't do with her hair. He had to admit, a few of his sexual fantasies had been shot down instantly when he had seen their reaction to how Lee's braid had been forcefully used. His fantasies had seemed so innocent to him at the time – well, not _innocent_, like pure or anything, but he hadn't thought it would _hurt_ anyone.

He would never bring it up. He would never ask. He would never _hint_ at ever having thought to do such a thing.

He all but ran out of the maze, Hinata calling out a cheerful goodbye to Lee on the way.

They passed Sasuke, who was approaching the heart of the maze at a much more sedated pace than Naruto had, and he watched them zoom by with a small frown.

Naruto, in that moment, hated him for his calmness.

He really did.

Having been raised together be damned – he would strangle Sasuke later for not being as freaked out as he was.

Of course, Naruto hadn't noticed that Sasuke was walking a bit faster than usual.

Not that much faster, not as if he was racing towards or away from something. But his strides were that much longer and his arms swung just that much wider and he arrived in the heart of the maze a few seconds earlier than he would have had he been walking as slowly as he usually did.

Lee was already standing, knowing that he was due to come by sooner or later, and his eyes lit up with love when they saw Sasuke. "Hello, Sasuke!"

He didn't grab Lee and hold onto him like he might disappear, like Naruto had. But he did reach out and pull Lee against him. He was still slightly damp from his fall into the pond.

"Are we better now, as far as you're concerned?" he asked, feigning boredom as well as he could. Lee was still slightly pale. Possibly tired. His shoulder-length hair had been shorn unevenly.

Sasuke was in no hurry to trim it and even it out.

Lee nodded once. "As _imou-saeng_ told Naruto, it's like a scar now – it happened and it hurt, but it's healed now. You know, that is truly quote-worthy. She can be so wise, it's at odds with how young and innocent she looks."

"And how are we?" Sasuke pressed.

"You _have_ proven that you can give me space…" Lee began teasingly.

"Good." He bit down hungrily on the back of Lee's neck. "Then you won't mind if we have children now."

Lee squawked. "Sasuke!"

He placed his hand over Lee's belly. "My child is going to grow in here, and you are going to grow as he grows and everyone is going to know that you're taken."

"How do you know it will be a 'he'?"

He didn't even dignify that with an answer. "We'll bond first."

"_Will_ we now?"

"Naruto explained it… vaguely."

"Did he tell you about the part where you _ask_ me to bond with you?"

Sasuke offered his most charming smile. "I don't have to ask."

Lee huffed. "And if I _want_ you to ask?"

"Do you?"

"Well, yes."

Sasuke stepped back and bowed practically in half. He held Lee's hand to his mouth and looked up at him through his bangs. "Lee, will you bond with me?"

Lee laughed and shook his head delightedly. "You don't even know how to propose properly."

"Then why don't you show me?"

Lee sat down on the ground, legs crossed, and tugged Sasuke to mirror his position. He held one of Sasuke's hands in each of his, his beneath Sasuke's and with palm to back, and laid them between them. "And then you say, 'Will you be mine bonded lover?'. Of course, it's different for whatever bond you want –"

"Yes."

Lee frowned. "Yes, what?"

Sasuke grinned wickedly. "Yes, I will be your bonded lover."

Lee's eyes went perfectly round and his mouth formed a small 'o'. "That was a dirty trick."

"You should have seen it coming."

"I should have, shouldn't I?"

Sasuke leaned over their clasped hands and kissed Lee soundly. "I'm very clever."

"I'm beginning to realize that."

"We'll bond tonight," Sasuke swore. "And then, by tomorrow, there will be a playmate for Naruto's child growing inside of you."

Lee flushed. "What are you in such a rush for?"

Sasuke smirked and pressed his forehead to Lee's. The answer was simple.

"You."

~""~

It happened on a warm day in September.

Naruto's eyes were bright with pride and love and awe. His entire form shook but for his hands, steady as they clasped a small bundle of orange to his broad chest.

Lying in the newly furnished nest behind Naruto was Lee's _imou-saeng_. She had fallen into a fitful rest, pale and sweaty, hair mussed and body splayed, but no less beautiful.

Lee smiled and leaned his head on Sasuke's shoulder. "What are you going to name him?" he asked Naruto softly, feeling Sasuke's arm come around his waist and pull him closer. He glanced up at him and saw the want in his lover's eyes as he stared at the tiny bundle.

Lee pressed a hand to his own slightly rounded abdomen. In time, this moment would be theirs.

"What am I going to _name_ him?" Naruto asked back shrilly, almost dementedly. His full grin showed off fangs and he laughed breathlessly. "Is there a name for something this precious? I mean, _Gaia_, he's so beautiful and, he's mine, ours, and, and he's so _tiny_ and it's – he fits in my _hand_."

"I'm sure you'll think of something," Sasuke said, black eyes glinting.

"I think, yeah, it'd be best, y'know, if I waited for Hinata to wake up… Then we'd, y'know, talk about it, and, well, try to… Are all babies this small? It's just, he's so perfect and fragile and, _joduck_, what if I lose him? If I take my eyes off of him, it's like he'll disappear…"

"Watch your language," Lee began primly. "He doesn't need to be hearing such things." Naruto's mouth obediently snapped shut, even as Sasuke raised a brow at him.

"He won't remember this," Sasuke said.

He too was silenced, except by a dark glare.

Lee turned back to Naruto. "You won't lose him. I know you won't ever take your eyes off of him." It already seemed impossible for the blonde. He hadn't looked up once from the bundle.

"I think I'd, er, y'know, feel safer if… if he had someone near his age around…" Naruto fiddled with the blanket, pulling it closer to his precious newborn fortune. "Not to pressure anyone, but…"

Lee chuckled at Naruto's failure at subtlety.

Then Sasuke pressed a kiss to his brow and his other hand tugged at Lee's braid. "We can't force our child to come out any faster."

Naruto gave them a look of pure neglected need, as if he had seen the worst of life and demanded that he be compensated for it. "But, _Sasuukee_!"

His lover shuddered. "If you do that to my name again, I will kill you and your son will grow up without you."

"You wouldn't do that." At Sasuke's less than assuring expression, he gulped. "Would you?"

"Do you really want to find out?"

Lee glared at the both of them. "Shame on you two! Today is about a newborn child, not yourselves."

"But, I was just trying to make sure my son, my firstborn son, would have a friend to play with –"

"And he _will_," Lee interrupted sternly. "In seven months."

"But that's a month longer than Hinata carried our child," Naruto complained.

"You know it's because I'm a man," Lee parried. "The child takes longer to develop."

He was already three months along anyway, which made him three months closer to the day when he could hold his and Sasuke's child in his arms.

"It's stupid," Naruto said petulantly.

"Very mature, Naruto," Sasuke crooned. "Let's hope your child takes up after your mate instead of you, or else we'll be in trouble."

"_Hiba det pata!_"

Lee gaped. "Watch your tongue!"

"Listen to the _opa_ of my child," Sasuke purred.

Lee turned on him with a glare. "And _you_, stop harassing Naruto! He's a father now."

"I'm a father too."

"You are a father-_in-waiting_. He is a father _now_."

"But you love me."

"That is beside the point." He waved a hand dismissively.

Sasuke grabbed his hand and nipped his inner wrist. Lee shivered as Sasuke stared at him heatedly.

Damn his hormones, but, suddenly, all he could think about was having Sasuke in bed with him.

Naruto must have sensed it, or, maybe he knew the look because of his _imou-saeng's_ pregnancy. Either way, he scowled. "Get out of here. When Hinata wakes up, we'll call you back in. Hypocrites. Really, like this is the first memory my baby boy needs of you two!"

Lee flushed darkly. Sasuke growled in warning. "I don't mind an audience, if you really want to try me."

Lee grabbed him quickly and pulled him towards the door. "Call us back the moment she wakes up! We want to be here when you name him! I am so proud of you, Naruto!" And he shoved Sasuke out of Naruto's private quarters.

"What?" Sasuke asked amusedly when Lee sulked at him. "He was testing me."

"And you failed."

"I never fail."

"You are failing at this argument and, if you don't stop trying to justify yourself, you will fail as a lover as well."

Sasuke's eyes narrowed on him, as if trying to gouge if he was serious or not. Arms crossed, chin thrown up, eyes slitted, Lee was the image of seriousness.

And then Sasuke grabbed him by his hips, pushed him against a wall, and bucked against him.

The image of seriousness slinked away as if it had never been and Lee groaned in obvious bliss as his hands clenched low on Sasuke's back, pulling him closer.

"I think I win as a lover."

"I think you need to prove this."

Without another word, Sasuke picked him up and stalked to their own private quarters.

Why did it have to be so far away?

Because Sasuke had wanted a room directly in the waterfall's path while Naruto had a window that faced the dawn.

Lee growled lightly and sucked Sasuke's lower lip into his mouth, legs locked tightly around his waist. They fell forward into their nest and Sasuke immediately began removing clothing.

Lee tilted his head back so that Sasuke could suck on his neck.

A small obsidian box had taken residency on Sasuke's desk. Cloth of green and blue and white, to mirror the shades of the ocean, lined it and, perched carefully in its folds were two small pearls.

One was glossy black and the other was milky white.

Sasuke mouthed two words against his flesh, a soft, breathy declaration, and Lee sighed happily, taking his eyes off the proof of their bond to relish in his mate's attention.

He cupped the back of his mate's head and pressed a small, chaste kiss to his forehead. Sasuke looked up at him and Lee kissed the tip of his nose as well. "I love you too."

~""~

_Translations:_

_Joduck_ – Fuck – Language of the West

_The End…_


	7. A Side Story

The Sabaku Clan, cast in the dunes of the desert, under the dominance of the GoldMaker Kaze, was withering. Wilting beneath the blistering sun and growing poverty.

Gold. The leaders of the Sabaku Clan had been named for their ability to summon it from the bowels of the earth and control it, a gift passed down from father to son for generations. Not too long ago, the Sabaku Clan had been rich with it, bars and coins and jewelry, harvesting nuggets and selling them at high prices. Everyone loved gold, and the Sabaku Clan was the only group to have it.

That could have been because Kaze, like his father and grandfather and every father before that, had always manipulated the gold away from other's greedy hands, twisting and churning and redirecting the mineral so that a stranger to his clan could dig in the richest soils and tromp through the most giving shallow waters and never find a single nugget.

The Sabaku Clan had been incredibly wealthy and very, very proud. Their noses were always turned up towards the sky. It was sheer luck that it rarely rained in the desert, or else they surely would have drowned for how far back they threw their heads in haughty disdain for all those they viewed lower than themselves.

Life was very good for them, to them.

Until not too long ago.

Kaze the GoldMaker had a beautiful wife and two perfect, passionate children. When his wife became pregnant the third time, something… changed.

The deserts would surge towards them, dunes unwinding, shadows reaching, animals and plants alike coming up strangled or never seen again. The gold retreated, forced away by some power greater than the GoldMaker's. Yet the retreat was so slow, Kaze did not know of it till it was too late.

His third child, a son, was born far too early, and, at the price of his life, Kaze's wife forfeited her own. The day she died, the day of his third child's birth, was the day the gold disappeared from the ground and all that was left was…

Sand.

Kaze hid this from his clan for three years before they noticed that their coffers had been scraped clean and their reserves were empty. There was no more gold.

Pride and arrogance bled to shame and desperation. The riches the clan held for themselves were sold off, piece by piece, strip of fabric by strip of fabric, crystal by crystal.

In just two more years, the once proud and wealthy clan was nothing more than a group of desert dwellers, dressed in poor cloth and faces sullen and joyless.

The clan could not find it in themselves to hate their leader, despite his lies. Instead, they redirected their despair and loathing towards the third child. The son who had drawn in the sands and forced away their way of living.

Gaara was the child's name.

And his father made it so that Gaara paid dearly for what he had wrought.

Gaara earned four names in the years to come.

Gaara of the Sabaku Clan.

Son of the GoldMaker.

Heir of the Sand.

The Desert Whore.

For Gaara was a rare sight, with his flaming red hair and alabaster pale skin. His pale, exotic eyes were outlined darkly every day in heavy makeup, drawing out his ethereal white glow and the gleam of his piercing gaze.

It was not too hard, neither on their conscious nor in matters of opportunity, to sell the third son out to others. Prostitution was for cowards or those who thought themselves above fighting in the ring, and the West was full of both. The price for him was always high and the times he spent away from the clan were always long as his masters would do anything and everything they liked to him. They were charged by the day.

Though he never earned enough for the entire clan to live as richly as they once had, they each lived in comfort and with enough coins left over to spoil themselves.

But never Gaara, who was the one who earned their livelihood. He was despised. He had made the gold go away. The other children wouldn't play with him, they had learned to hate him from their parents. Their parents wouldn't come near him, they called him filthy and wanton and other terrible names he hadn't even known the meaning of when he had been younger.

But every young, shattered child had to grow up one day, and some grew to be… beasts.

He killed one of his masters, completely by accident. There had been pain, his skin had been too tight, his gums had itched, his eyes had watered, his fingertips had prickled. There had been a roar and claws had lashed out, ripping through his molester cleanly, easily.

When the Desert Whore had woken up the next morning, the bed had been spattered with blood and he had stared into the empty glaze of his master's eyes.

Things changed again in the Sabaku Clan. The Desert Whore became a poison and they would sell him to merchants who no one knew and heirs that would never reach their rightful places. When Gaara would kill them, several of his clan mates would be waiting to steal everything of value that had come with Gaara's master.

This did not continue on for long either.

The Desert Whore began to choose his own masters. He chose his own bedmates and began to step into the ring to fight for the right to have a mate.

And this was when the Sabaku Clan began to doubt their actions. Gaara's bedmates would come away… bloody. Wide-eyed and mute, shaking, haunted, defiled in ways that went deeper than just skin.

Gaara had just cracked, balancing a narrow pole between childhood and manhood, when he turned on his own clan.

Sisters and brothers alike were broken in hours.

Gaara's two siblings, his oldest sister Temari and older brother Kankuro, went missing for four days.

When they were returned, they lived in fear of their youngest sibling. They obeyed his every word and gave him everything he wanted, even if they had to steal it. Even if they had to bleed or others had to suffer, they never denied the Desert Whore.

It would be another year before they would even speak a word.

The day the Sabaku Clan wept over their foolishness, however, was the day the desert shifted and a storm raged for days. When the air was clear, their leader was gone, lost forever.

All they had left of Kaze was the bloodied sheets in his room, the spatters of blood on the walls, and the tongue Gaara had kept as a reminder of everything his father had ever said to him.

He earned his title of Heir of the Sand on that day. His siblings were in no shape to rule and there was no one else related to their deceased leader.

And the people wept.

All the people.

Except for one.

Gaara of the Sabaku Clan, son of the GoldMaker, Heir of the Sand…

The Desert Whore.

~::~

Lybellulla, or KakaIru on fanction, wanted there to be a reason why Gaara was the way he was. The tricky part is that I already have the complete story written and waiting to be uploaded, and an explanation for why Gaara was the way he was wasn't in the chapters…

But this is a gift for Lybellulla, so I have to do everything within my power to make sure she loves it. So here's a side chapter.


End file.
